Legislative Council General Elections Singapore

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1. Singapore Guide
   

   The Legislative Council General Elections Singapore was the first election to be held in Singapore, taking place on 21 March 1948 when six of the 22 seats on the Legislative Council were open for popular voting, albeit only for British subjects. The election was announced on 1 February, and nominations were due by 15 February. The campaign period lasted for 31 days. Only six out of 22 were seats opened to the electorate and another three would be nominated by the three commercial organisations, namely the Singapore Chamber of Commerce, Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Indian Chamber of Commerce. The British colonial government appointed the remaining 13 seats, which were the posts of Governor, Colonial Secretary, Financial Secretary, Attorney-General, Solicitor-General, two Directors, two Ex-Officio Commissioners and four Non-Officio ones. Two constituencies had two seats each while two others had one. Parties had no fixed standard symbol and candidates had to ballot for one offered by the elections office. The Progressive Party was the only contesting party. Voting was not compulsory and a privilege to only "British subjects", constituting about 2% of Singapore's population of over 940,000 residents. Calls by various organisations to boycott the election led to a voter turnout of 63.1% with 25,072 votes cast.

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