Progressive Party (Singapore)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Singapore Progressive Party, or just, the Progressive Party is a now defunct political party that won the Legislative Assembly general elections in 1948 by winning half of the contested seats in the Legislative Assembly, 3 out of 6. At that time, the self-government power of the Legislative Assembly was still rather limited.

Its campaign ideology was to advocate progressive and gradual reforms, rather than sudden, quick, radical ones, which fell in line with British policy at the time, to slowly let Singapore gain full self-government. This approach was criticised vehemently by David Saul Marshall, who instead wanted rapid reform.

It failed to win the successive elections in the 1955 general elections, losing to David Marshall, and ultimately later merged with the Democratic Party to form the Liberal Socialist Party.