Polling of Singapore's general election begins

The polling of Singapore's 10th general election began at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday.

More than 1.22 million electors are expected to cast their votes at 422 polling stations in the following 12 hours.

Of them, 553 overseas voters will be voting at eight polling centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, London, Washington, San Francisco, Canberra and Tokyo, which is the city state's first overseas voting.

The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is contesting with the opposition parties for 47 of the 84 parliamentary seats in all the nine Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) and seven of the 14 Group Representation Constituency (GRCs).

This is Lee's first general election since he took over office as Prime Minister from Goh Chok Tong in August 2004 and became the party's secretary general in December of the same year.

The PAP has secured 37 seats in the other seven uncontested GRCs immediately after nomination on April 27, but it is for the first time since 1988 that the party did not win a majority of the total seats available to declare victory in a general election on nomination day.

Singapore's last general election was held in November 2001, in which the PAP got 75 percent of the votes and won 82 of the 84 seats, while the Workers' Party and the Singapore Democratic Alliance gained one seat each.

Source: Xinhua