alt Hacker NewsFrom what I've read (and this may very well be outdated), Singapore is generally democratic, but the PAP does such a good job of running the country that people don't vote for other parties.
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Yeah we've heard that before from people who turned out to be filthy liars. Not saying it is impossible, the Singapore numbers are borderline plausible, but if the leading party gets more than 60% of the vote I'm going to assume shenanigans unless I've seen some pretty strong evidence beyond what a propaganda department would put out. People don't agree with each other all that much.
Opposition can literally just converge to the PAP positions over time. Or internal factionalism causes a schism and leads to 2 parties forming from one overwhelming ruling party. In political settings there are enormous incentives to set up roughly 50-50 coalitions.
The Chinese Communist Party and United Russia might say the same thing.
PAP has exploited Singapore's strict libel laws to bankrupt opposition parties by suing for defamation. It is not so difficult to retain power when the opposition has no money for campaigning.