AP News, February 24th, 2007
Clad in military-style pants, bright T-shirts and dangling chains, 12 Singapore lawmakers grooved to hip-hop music in the city-state's largest annual street parade Saturday, part of the ruling party's efforts to ditch its authoritarian and conservative image.
The ministers, most of whom won parliament seats in last year's election, were joined by 300 dancers as they showed their moves at the Chingay parade. Some 18,000 people crowded the sidewalks of the Orchard Road shopping district, which was ablaze with lights and pyrotechnics.
"We enjoyed it," said civil servant Kok Ping Soon, 36, who attended the parade with his family. "It was good to see them dancing, to see that they are part of the community."
The People's Action Party has ruled Singapore for more than 40 years, transforming it from a malarial backwater to gleaming financial center. But the country's sometimes harsh social and political controls are well documented: homosexuality is outlawed, public demonstrations banned, even chewing gum is restricted.
The lawmakers' new style was a far cry from the usual dress code of the ruling party, who wear all-white at party functions. The ruling party is first to admit that it is "conservative, even retro," in the words of Lee Hsien Loong, the party's chairman and Singapore's prime minister.
He tasked this younger generation of ministers _ dubbed P-65 because they were born after Singapore's independence in 1965 _ with making the party more "hip and happening," according to a party newsletter issued shortly after a landslide victory in the 2006 parliamentary election.
They hope to win P-65 voters, who the party expects will make up 60 percent of its supporters in the next general election in 2011, according to the party's newsletter.
Among other measures to liven up the party, many of the ministers maintain blogs in which they write about playing soccer, post baby photos of themselves and discuss their favorite 80s music.
Public reception to the party's efforts has been lukewarm at best. Several local humorists and bloggers have labeled the move as "gimmicky."
The Chingay parade itself also carries political undertones. Conceived 35 years ago by Lee Kuan Yew _ former prime minister and so-called "founder of modern Singapore" _ the parade was meant to "make up for the absence of the traditional sound" after the government banned firecrackers.
