Quora Answer: Are the People’s Action Party (PAP), in Singapore; & the Democratic Action Party (DAP), in Malaysia, Similar?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Are the People’s Action Party (PAP), in Singapore; and the Democratic Action Party (DAP), in Malaysia,  similar?”

The Democratic Action Party began as a branch of the People’s Action Party, which currently rules Singapore.  Like their progenitor party, they championed a “Malaysian Malaysia”.  After Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, the Malaysian branch of the PAP was deregistered as a political party.  The members of the defunct PAP, then refounded it as the DAP.

An interesting fact is that the first secretary general of the DAP was Devan Nair Chengara Veetil.  Devan Nair, as he is better known, is the only member of the PAP to have ever won a seat in Malaysia and Singapore.  He won the Bagsar seat, and later the Anson seat for Singapore’s Parliament.  He later left the DAP in 1967 to return to Singapore to head the labour movement he founded, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

Another notable, from a Singapore perspective, member of this first DAP pro-tem, was Seeveratnam Sinnathamby, their treasurer.  He was the brother of Sinnathamby Rajaratnam.  S. Rajaratnam became Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister.

There was a lot of overlap in personnel and messaging between the DAP, and the PAP.  Whilst the DAP has remained a multi-racial party in what became an increasingly racialised political landscape, it eventually went its own way and has very little in common with the PAP in experience or political position.