After the war, when British rule was restored, Singapore became a separate Crown colony. The war left the economy in shambles, with widespread unemployment and a critical housing shortage.
The British were concerned about communist infiltration of the trade unions and Chinese middle schools, and the period from 1946 to 1959 was turbulent. Because of the communist challenge, progress toward self-government was hesitant. The salient postwar political division in Singapore was between the English-educated of all races and the Chinese-educated Chinese. The early elections for a minority of the legislative seats featured a limited franchise, and those elected were all English-speaking moderates.
A new constitution was promulgated in 1955 that provided for an enlarged franchise and an elected legislative majority. This stimulated the formation of some new political parties, including the Labour Front (LF), a moderate-left party, and the People's Action Party (PAP), led by British-educated moderates, which was perceived as a radical anticolonial party backed by the procommunists. In the 1955 elections the LF won the most seats and formed the government under David Saul Marshall (1908–1995), the first chief minister. The PAP contested only four seats and won three.
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