from BBC.co.uk
Polls open in Singapore election
The opposition is hoping to make gains
Voting has started in the general election in Singapore.
The poll is the first electoral test for Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong since his appointment in August 2004.
For first time in almost 20 years, the opposition is contesting
more than half of the constituencies in the tightly-controlled
city-state.
Final campaign rallies were held on Friday, with the governing
People's Action Party emphasising what it calls its strong record
on economic growth.
However, opposition groups have insisted the gap between rich and
poor in Singapore is increasing.
The opposition has only two seats in the 84-member
parliament.
It has little access to state-controlled media and its leaders are
frequently sued for libel and bankrupted.
In the last vote, in 2001, only a third of voters were offered a
choice of candidate, with the opposition fielding hopefuls for 29
seats.
This time the main opposition parties - the Workers' Party (WP),
the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and the Singapore
Democratic Party (SDP) - are together contesting 47 seats.
Mr Lee apologised on Friday for saying earlier in the week that he
would be distracted by a stronger opposition.
"Instead of spending my time thinking of what is the right
policy for Singapore, I have to spend all my time thinking what is
the right way to fix them, what's the right way to buy my own
supporters over," he said.
The BBC's Andrew Harding in Singapore says slowly, though, things
are changing.
The internet has broken the government's stranglehold on the media,
and a younger generation is starting to question the restrictions
of Singapore's nanny state, our correspondent says.
That is not likely to translate into an election upset, he says,
but any gains by the opposition could be interpreted as the start
of a trend
