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History of Singapore


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convinced Britain to grant Singapore full internal self-government for all matters except defence and foreign affairs.

During the May 1959 elections, the People's Action Party won a landslide victory. Singapore had become an internally self-governing state within the Commonwealth, with Lee Kuan Yew as the first Prime Minister. Governor Sir William Allmond Codrington Goode served as the first Yang di-Pertuan Negara ("Head of State"), and was succeeded by Yusof bin Ishak who in 1965 became the first President of Singapore. During the 1950s Communists, mostly supported by the Chinese-speaking group, with strong ties to the trade unions and Chinese schools, carried out an armed struggle against the state, resulting in the Malayan Emergency and later, the Communist Insurgency War. The 1954 National Service Riots, Chinese middle schools riots and Hock Lee bus riots in Singapore were all linked to the Communists

On 31 August 1963, Singapore declared independence from Britain and joined with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the new Federation of Malaysia as the result of the 1962 Merger Referendum. Singaporean leaders joined Malaysia for various reasons. Firstly, as a small country, they did not believe that the British would find it viable for Singapore to become independent by itself. Secondly, they also did not believe that Singapore could survive on its own, due to scarcity of land, water, markets and natural resources. And lastly, the Singapore government wanted the help of the Malaysian government to flush out the Communists. The two years that Singapore spent as part of Malaysia were filled with strife and bitter disagreements. The Malaysians insisted on a pro-Malay society, where Malays were given special Bumiputera rights, which still exist to this day. The Malaysians were also suspicious about Singapore's majority of ethnic Chinese and worried that Singapore's economic clout would shift the centre of power from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. There
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