Singapore's polls close, counting begins

SINGAPORE, May 6 (Reuters) Singaporeans voted today in a general election in which anything less than a resounding victory for the ruling People's Action Party could be regarded as a failure for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The poll is the first real popularity test for Lee, 54, since he was appointed in August 2004 without an election in a planned leadership transition.

The opposition has fielded candidates for more than half the seats in parliament, denying the PAP an automatic victory on Nomination Day for the first time in nearly two decades.

Polls closed at 8 p m 1730 hrs IST and the first results were expected around two hours later.

Throughout the day, hundreds of voters trickled in to voting centres, waiting in orderly queues as policemen looked on.

Voting is compulsory, but only about a quarter of Singapore's population of 4.4 million had a chance to vote due to walkovers in 37 of the 84 seats. Many were voting for the first time.

''This is my first time voting and I voted for the opposition as I felt that they were going to try to do more for the needy.

I wanted to give them a chance,'' said Jacinta Huang, a 24-year-old social worker.

Lee, the eldest son of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, needs to get at least 61 percent of the votes and lose no more than four seats, analysts said. That was the result his predecessor, Goh Chok Tong, got in the PAP's worst electoral outcome in 1991.

Anything less than that would be a ''major psychological blow'', said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB-GK Research.

Singapore bans election surveys and exit polls, making it difficult to gauge opinion.

OPPOSITION RALLIES But opposition rallies have drawn big crowds including the prime minister's own teenage son.

Lee told reporters on Friday night he had asked his son why he had not attended a PAP rally and his son had replied: ''So boring and logical''.

Lee added: ''So I think it's okay. Many more (are) like that, want to hear but when it comes to the moment to vote and decide, I think they know what's in their interest.'' The prime minister and his father premier for 31 years after separation from Malaysia and now the ''Minister Mentor'' filed defamation suits against the leaders of the Singapore Democratic Party at the start of campaigning.

It's a timeworn PAP tactic that has bankrupted some opposition leaders, thus disqualifying them for parliament.

Some voters seemed to be turned off by Singapore's hardball politics.

''I believed in the PAP before, but I think the party no longer represents me or the way I see things,'' said W M Ng, a 36-year-old advertising executive. ''They tell you what to do, and you do it.

They don't listen. I don't agree with their heavy-handed style of government.'' Aware of the need to woo young voters, the PAP is fielding 24 new candidates, what it calls its ''fourth generation'' of leaders.

But the bedrock of PAP support has always been older voters, who lived through Singapore's rocky post-independence years and witnessed its transformation into an economic powerhouse.

''What concerns me most is peace and safety,'' said taxi-driver Lee Kwok Seng, 44. ''The government has given me safety and I don't want crime in Singapore.'' When Lee Hsien Loong became prime minister, he promised more political openness, but there has been scant evidence of that.

The government strictly enforces limits on public speaking and demonstrations and last month said it would require political parties and individuals to register if they wish to post political content on Web sites.

REUTERS SY RN1820