Prime Minister Lawrence Wong‘s People’s Action Party (PAP) achieved a decisive victory in Singapore’s General Election on Saturday, winning 87 out of 97 parliamentary seats, according to local media.
The party sought a fresh mandate amidst economic uncertainties stemming from US trade tariffs. Since Singapore’s independence in 1965, the PAP has maintained continuous governance.
On Saturday, approximately 2.6 million eligible Singaporean voters cast ballots for 92 contested seats, with PAP’s Marine Parade-Braddell Heights constituency already secured through a walkover on April 23.
This election marked Wong’s inaugural leadership test as prime minister of Singapore, a nation now confronting economic challenges due to tariffs implemented by US President Donald Trump.
Following the announcement of results in Marsiling-Yew Tee Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Wong described the election as a “humbling experience” and committed to serving voters diligently.
“We are grateful for your strong mandate and… will honour the trust that you have given to us by working even harder for all of you,” said the 52-year-old premier.
The Elections Department (ELD) reported that citizens voted at 1,240 polling stations across the island for 92 of 97 parliamentary seats, determining Singapore’s political direction.
This election represented Singapore’s 19th since 1948 and 14th post-independence. Wong assumed office last May, succeeding Lee Hsien Loong who served nearly twenty years.
Opposition parties conducted vigorous campaigns, highlighting concerns about living costs, housing affordability and foreign worker presence in Singapore’s labour-scarce economy.
Senior PAP officials balanced campaign activities with trade negotiations during the nine-day period following April 23 nominations, particularly regarding US-imposed tariffs on Singapore’s exports.
Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Gan Kim Yong engaged in discussions with US counterparts regarding the 10 per cent tariff on Singaporean imports.
The PAP contested all 92 constituencies, while the Workers’ Party competed for 26 seats across eight constituencies. The Progress Singapore Party fielded 13 candidates in six constituencies, alongside other participating parties including SPP, SDP, PPP, PAR, RDU, NSP, SUP and SDA.
Wong emphasised responsible voting given unprecedented global economic challenges. Singapore’s position between US-China trade tensions is particularly significant given its historical ties with both nations.
Singapore’s manufacturing sector entered recession territory in April 2025, with US tariffs causing export order deferrals and cancellations. The PMI decreased to 49.6 points from March’s 50.6.
“The contraction in Singapore’s factory activity snaps 19 straight months of expansion,” reported The Straits Times, citing SIPMM’s Friday report.
The PAP secured one five-member constituency through walkover on April 23. Their popular vote share had previously declined to 61 per cent in 2020 from nearly 70 per cent in 2015, though they retained 83 of 93 seats while the opposition gained ten seats.

Vietnam recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its triumph against the United States and its success in re-unifying the country in April 1975. This victory marked the apogee of a long phase of revolutionary wars and struggles led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and its different avatars against colonialism, French re-occupation, and later the U.S. intervention from 1925.

It was precisely in 1925 that the tallest leader of the CPV, Ho Chi Minh — then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc — established the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League or the Thanh Nien in Guangzhou, China, that aimed for national independence and a socialist government; these were the first organisational steps taken to form the Communist Party.

A 100 years later, today, the CPV governs Vietnam as a single party political system that is characterised by a strong market-based economy where, as its general secretary To Lam said in his speech at a massive parade commemorating the 50th anniversary of the reunification last week, the private sector remained the “most important driver of the national economy”.

The Vietnamese experience of blending market reforms and communist leadership — it still terms this model “socialist-oriented developmentalism” — was a consequence of its experience during the decade that followed the end of the Vietnam War.

Till 1986, the CPV practised orthodox socialist policies, which included a centrally planned economy, nationalisation of industries (including those in the conquered South), collectivisation of agriculture into cooperatives, implementation of five-year plans focused on production targets and resource allocation, and an emphasis on heavy industry.

The devastation of its economy due to the war, the continued U.S.-led embargo, the Vietnamese invasion of neighbouring Cambodia — a consequence of the depredations of the Khmer Rouge regime — and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in the late 1970s all resulted in the economy remaining in doldrums. This situation was exacerbated by the inefficiencies of the planned model — the low productivity after collectivisation, the shortages of food and goods, and high inflation, leading to severe economic hardship as well.

Economic transformation

This ultimately forced the hand of the CPV to undertake economic reforms, what it termed ‘Doi Moi’ or Renovation, featuring de-collectivisation of agriculture, price liberalisation, and allowing small-scale private enterprise in the first phase, followed by macroeconomic stabilisation, allowing foreign investment, international integration (including joining ASEAN), and state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in Phase 2. By the late-1990s, the CPV promoted trade agreements, entry into the WTO, developed institutions to facilitate a functioning market economy, allowed the private sector to lead economic growth, and deepened SOE reforms which included “equitisation” or “partial privatisation”.

These steps were consequential. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Vietnam’s poverty rate was close to 60%, its per capita GDP roughly $430, and its Human Development Index (HDI) value 0.492, all of which corresponded to a poor country with low human development. In 2023, Vietnam’s GDP per capita was $4,347; the multidimensional poverty rate fell to just 1.9% by late 2024, and the HDI in 2022 was recorded to be 0.726, placing it in the “high human development” category and as a middle-income country.

Speaking to this writer in Ho Chi Minh City recently, Tuoc Huynh, a digital commerce expert who helped the entry of Google, and led Facebook in Vietnam, said how the reforms led to an “Ice hockey stick” nature of the growth curve in the country. Mr. Tuoc was himself born into a family of Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S. and returned to the country to be part of the economic growth process.

But the rapid economic growth has not meant that it has been entirely inequitable — Vietnam’s Gini coefficient (which measures inequality on a scale of 0 to 100) is 36, one of the lowest in the Southeast Asian region. “Socialist” policies continue in terms of benefits to workers — who are entitled to 12 days of leave per year and more with experience, plus significant pension contributions, for example.

The transition of the country’s communist party leadership since 1986 also provides an indication of the economic and political trends. The relatively doctrinaire Le Duan led the party during the war after the demise of Ho Chi Minh in 1969 and till 1986, before Truong Chinh took over and supported the reformist wing in the party that laid the stepping stones for Doi Moi. Nguyen Van Linh, a leader from the South associated with reform and pragmatism, took over in December 1986, decisively leading the shift towards a market economy.

The era of reformism ushered in by Nguyen Van Linh has generally been the norm in the CPV since, but Nguyen Phu Trong’s regime between 2011 and 2024 also featured a sweeping anti-corruption programme (called the “blazing furnace”) against senior party leaders and government officials. This was, of course, a reaction to the other consequence of pursuing market reforms — the creation of a nouveau-riche elite and the one-party system also facilitating high-end corruption.

To Lam, who succeeded him in 2024, was closely associated with the anti-corruption drive in the Ministry of Public Security but as his speech emphasised, he is also firmly committed to the Doi Moi path and towards Vietnam’s quest of becoming an upper-middle income country by 2030.

Being a single party-state, Vietnam has also tightly restricted political freedoms related to association and civil liberties. This makes it imperative for the CPV to link its legitimacy as the ruling party to the outcomes of its economic policies and to the perception of its leadership. The CPV’s leadership, especially on security and party matters, is also still dominated by northern leaders, suggesting its continuing and higher popularity in the North, while Southern leaders take up more provincial and economic roles.

Collective leadership

The CPV is distinguished from other peers — the Communist Party of China is today dominated by Xi Jinping — by its adherence to collective leadership and decision making driven by consensus and the distinct lack of any personality cult. The parade on April 30 showcased the different wings of the armed forces, party, and government of Vietnam; only the visage of Ho Chi Minh was ever-present among images of leaders.

It is not surprising why — Ho Chi Minh was inextricably linked to the vicissitudes of the communist movement in the country. He was a nationalist who sought independence from colonialism while being a socialist. He believed Marxism-Leninism offered the surest steps for the anti-colonial struggle and to build an egalitarian nation. He also played a key role in setting up the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

The communists of the ICP dominated the Viet Minh that led and won the anti-colonial struggle against the French, and after the ICP’s dissolution into constituent parties across the three countries, they formed the Workers Party of Vietnam (WPV), which ruled North Vietnam [before the reunification]. The WPV’s southern wing was the Peoples’ Revolutionary Party of South Vietnam, which led the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, more popularly known as the Viet Cong, which orchestrated the struggle against the South Vietnam regime and the U.S. forces in the war. Even after nearly 40 years of reform in a world where the socialist bloc no longer exists, Vietnam continues to pay tribute to Ho Chi Minh as its ideological fountainhead, mainly due to his foundational role in combining Marxism-Leninism and Vietnamese nationalism.

The deaths of at least six foreign nationals in a fiery van crash in eastern Idaho are a reminder that the visitors who throng to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks from around the world travel on scenic byways that can be as dangerous as the region’s grizzly bears and boiling hot pools.
The van collided with a pickup truck Thursday on a highway just west of Yellowstone. Both vehicles caught fire, and the survivors were taken to hospitals with injuries, according to police. The tourists who were killed were from Italy and China, officials said.
The Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco said eight Chinese citizens were injured in the crash. The accident comes after a crash in 2019 of a bus from Las Vegas carrying Chinese tourists that rolled over near southern Utah’s Bryce National Park, killing four people and injuring dozens more.
Where the van in Thursday’s accident was coming from and going was unknown. Some Yellowstone roads, including the one south of Old Faithful – the park’s most famous geyser – were still closed after the snowy winter.
The highway where the accident happened south of West Yellowstone, Montana, offers a way to get between Yellowstone and Grand Teton at this time of year, before a north-south route is plowed and the park fully opens for summer.
National parks including the world’s first, Yellowstone, draw visitors from worldwide According to the most recent data from the International Trade Administration, 36% of international visitors who arrived to the US by air listed visits to national parks and national monuments as their top leisure activity while in the US.
Seventeen percent of Yellowstone’s visitors came from other countries in 2016, according to a park visitor use study with the most recent comprehensive data available.
Visitors from Europe and Asia accounted for the majority of travelers from outside the US, with 34% from China, 11% from Italy and 10% from Canada.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed those numbers significantly, said Brian Riley whose Wyoming-based business, Old Hand Holdings, markets the Yellowstone region in China and runs tours.
“Every Chinese is taught how great Yellowstone is in their elementary school,” Riley said Friday.
The pandemic put a sharp brake on tourism of all kinds but especially from China, which has yet to recover, Riley observed. Now, visits by people already living in the US account for most visits by Chinese, he said.
“Foreigners in general they don’t feel safe over here like they did before,” Riley said Friday. “The Chinese are kind of preaching that behind the scenes.”
The US tourism industry expected 2025 to be another good year for foreign visitors. But several months in, international arrivals have been plummeting. Angered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric, and alarmed by reports of tourists being arrested at the border, some citizens of other countries are staying away from the US and choosing to travel elsewhere.
Riley, who grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, just south of Grand Teton and lived in China for a time to learn Mandarin and why Chinese wanted to visit the US, is more focused of late on getting them to visit Hawaii, a state perceived as less dangerous.
International visitors are all ages Yellowstone’s crowds peak in the summer, but international tourism peaks in spring and fall, according to Riley and West Yellowstone Mayor Jeff McBirnie.
Many foreign visitors are parents of international students at US colleges and universities.
“They’re like, ‘Hey let’s drop our kid off and go on vacation for a week.’ Or kid’s graduating, let’s get them through college and go on vacation,'” said McBirnie, who owns a pizza place in town. “They really bring a huge economic impact to this town.”
Yellowstone suffered a one-two punch between the pandemic and devastating floods in 2022 that cut off access to parts of the park for months.
Tourism rebounded with 4.7 million visitors last year, Yellowstone’s second-busiest on record.
A ‘legion’ of road deaths over the past century Winding roads and natural distractions help fuel numerous accidents in and around the park.
The first death involving a passenger vehicle in Yellowstone came just a few years after the park was completely motorized and a fleet of buses replaced the stage coaches and horses used for transport in the park’s early years.
In 1921, a 10-passenger bus went off the road in the Fishing Bridge area of the park and down an embankment, killing a 38-year-old Texas woman when her neck was broken, according to park historian Lee Whittlesey.
Whittlesey in his book “Deaths in Yellowstone.” chronicles deaths by all means — from drownings in hot springs, to bear maulings, airplane crashes and murders. Auto deaths, Whittlesey wrote, are “legion” in the park, to the point that he felt them too ordinary to include in his tally of fatalities.
Another accounting of deaths in Yellowstone says at least 17 people died inside the park in motor vehicle crashes since 2007, ranking it the second most common cause of deaths behind medical issues.
Whittlesey presaged the chapter of his book covering road deaths with a quote attributed to the 15th century soothsayer Mother Shipton: “Carriages without horses shall go, And Accidents fill the world with woe.”