Singapore 1999

Singapore’s population in 1999 was estimated at 4 million people, with a growth rate of 1.9%. The economy of Singapore was largely dependent on its services sector, which accounted for around 80% of the country’s GDP. This was supplemented by the agricultural and manufacturing industries. Foreign relations in 1999 were largely positive with the country enjoying strong ties with many Asian nations and the wider international community. Politically, Singapore had been a multi-party democracy since 1959 when it formally adopted a democratic system. The ruling party at this time was the People’s Action Party (PAP), which had been in power since 1959. In 1999, Goh Chok Tong was Prime Minister and had been since 1990. See ethnicityology for Singapore in the year of 2018.

Yearbook 1999

Singapore 1999

Singapore. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Singapore. Several lawsuits against opponents of Prime Minister Goh’s dominant party PAP (People’s Action Party) appeared as usual. In February, the leader of the opposition party SDP (Singapore Democratic Party), Chee Soon Juan, was sentenced to fines or imprisonment for speaking publicly without permission. Chee chose the prison sentence and pointed out in his defense that the ban on holding public speeches violates the freedom of speech in the Constitution. In April, Chee was sentenced to additional fines for illegally selling his book on Asian opposition leaders. In May, the small Workers’ Party (WP) lost its appeal against a judgment for damages equivalent to more than SEK 1 million, which the party was ordered to pay in 1998 for commenting on the PAP members.

  • Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of SGP which stands for Singapore and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.

Map of Singapore Singapore in English

Minister of the Interior Wong Kan Seng announced that the cancer patient, former stockbroker Nick Leeson, who in December 1995 was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for fraud, would be released for good conduct on July 3. Leeson was employed by Baring’s Bank, and his extensive business caused the bank’s collapse.

The state budget for 1999, which was presented in February, entailed an increase in expenditure of 5.6% compared to the previous year.

In April, Singapore and Malaysia again conducted joint defense exercises within the framework of the regional defense cooperation FPDA (Five-Power Defense Arrangements), with the other members being Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Malaysia had withdrawn from the cooperation in 1998, as an expression of deteriorating relations with Singapore.

In September 14, authorities banned the movie “To Singapore with Love” with the argument that it undermined national security. The film featured interviews with activists who had escaped from political persecution in the country, threatening to stand trial for violating the far-flung legislation regarding “Internal Security”. Instructor Tan Pin appealed the censorship decision, which was ratified in November by 9 votes to 3.

The regime won the parliamentary elections in September 2015. The PAP government party went up another 3 seats and got 83 out of the parliament’s 89 seats. As a percentage, PAP received 69.9% of the votes cast.

In June 2016, Malaysian national Kho Jabing was executed. He was convicted of murder and had just been denied his last appeal.

The regime continued its practice of persecuting and imprisoning independent journalists, bloggers and human rights activists.

In November 2016, Singapore passed a series of constitutional amendments, the most important of which was that if a population group had not been elected president for 5 years or within 30 years, the subsequent presidential election would only accept candidates from that group. Following the change, the authorities decided that at the 2017 presidential election, only candidates from the country’s Malay minority could stand. A number of candidates were eligible, but in the last down, only the incumbent Halimah Yacob was elected, and thus automatically elected. She was posted to the post in September 2017. The appointment did not spark unconditional enthusiasm in the population, with only 17% declaring that they felt represented by her, while 83% did not. Yacob was the country’s first female and first Malay president.

History

The paternalistic and authoritarian politics inaugurated by the People’s Action Party (PAP) in the late seventies did not undergo substantial changes in the following decades. The relative political dissent that emerged during the 1980s did not in fact undermine the hegemony of the PAP, which accentuated the repressive measures and maintained a rigid control over the media. Lee Kuan Yew, leader of the PAP and prime minister since 1959, continued to exert a strong influence despite having left the leadership of the government in 1990 and in 1992 the leadership of the party, both assumed by Goh Chok Tong.

Internal stability, the availability of cheap labor and a policy of encouraging foreign investment contributed to creating, during the 1990s, a significant economic development that allowed the government to reduce the tax burden, to expand investments in the education sector. and to increase social interventions. Also due to this policy was the increase in consensus recorded by the PAP in the legislative elections held in January 1997 (the party went from 60 % of the votes won in 1991 to 65 %), to which the lack of agreement of the opposition forces that appeared fragmented contributed and uniforms.

On the international level, the government sought to improve relations with the countries of Southeast Asia. In 1995 he signed a military cooperation pact with Malaysia and an agreement on the boundaries of territorial waters, which put an end to a fifteen-year dispute, at the same time starting intense economic cooperation. Relations with Indonesia were also intensified, while relations with the Philippines became strained. The death sentence of a Filipino citizen accused of double murder in fact provoked in 1995 the harsh reaction of Manila, which abruptly cut off diplomatic relations with Singapore. Reconnected only in 1996, relations between the two states improved in the following years and starting from 1998trade intensified within the framework of a general recovery of Singapore’s economy which was beginning to overcome – also thanks to the adoption of measures aimed at rationalizing the credit system (February 1998) – the serious financial crisis that had hit it in the 1997. In August 1999 the government, considering the elections superfluous having admitted only one candidate, proclaimed SR Nathan president of the Republic, thus confirming the rigidity of the political system.

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