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Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will find out at the Sept. 11 election if he’s done enough to stem a decline in support that in 2011 gave the ruling People’s Action Party the smallest share of the popular vote since independence.

Lee has managed a shift in economic policies amid slowing growth in the last four years. As campaigning starts this week, the PAP’s management of the economy will be assessed through the prism of bread-and-butter issues like living costs and train breakdowns, as much as through gross domestic product numbers.

The government’s performance in managing the inflow of foreigners, housing affordability and the cost of living were ranked most poorly among 20 issues, according to a survey of 2,000 voters commissioned by MediaCorp Pte. conducted from July 11 to Aug. 6.

Here are five issues that have captured public debate in the island nation in recent years, and the economic backdrop for this election.

1. Property Prices

Lee’s administration started introducing residential-property curbs in 2009 as low interest rates spurred demand from foreign buyers. The measures have worked: home prices fell for seven consecutive quarters through June after rising to a record in 2013, though they remain 51 percent higher than in June 2009.

The curbs have included a cap on debt repayment at 60 percent of a borrower’s monthly income and higher stamp duties on home purchases. The government is closely watching the domestic housing market that’s in a correction phase, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said Aug. 14.

2. Pension Funds







Last year, Singaporeans staged at least four protests against how the country’s mandatory savings fund is managed, according to the Straits Times newspaper. Criticism of the program, one of the biggest national savings funds in the world, has included allegations of a lack of transparency over how money in the fund is invested and restrictions on withdrawals.

Lee sued blogger Roy Ngerng in May 2014 after Ngerng suggested the prime minister had misappropriated the pension fund savings. Ngerng raised at least S$70,000 ($50,000) in four days through crowd-funding last year to pay for his legal costs after Lee declined his apology and offer of S$5,000 for damages.

The government said in its budget this year it will make changes to the pension system to benefit older and middle-income workers.

3. Living Costs

While Singapore’s consumer prices fell for a ninth straight month in July amid falling oil prices and government health care subsidies, the city remains the most expensive in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Lee this month announced plans to boost grants to make public housing, where more than 80 percent of Singaporeans live, more affordable.

The PAP has boosted spending on lower-income families and the elderly in recent years to help them cope with the cost of living. The government this year highlighted the “ pioneer generation,” giving subsidies to about 450,000 Singaporeans who were aged at least 16 in 1965 when the country became independent after its split from Malaysia.

4. Transport Strains

Singapore’s SMRT Corp., named the world’s best metro operator in 2009, angered commuters with two subway breakdowns in 2011, the most disruptive in its 25-year history. The disruptions prompted protests against fare increases and forced the company to boost spending on upgrades amid the government’s biggest transport-related inquiry since 2004.

Most recently, Singaporeans vented on social media after a power fault froze evening commutes across two major train lines and stranded thousands on July 7. Transport minister Lui Tuck Yew, a member of parliament since 2006, said he will not stand for re-election in September’s poll.

5. Foreigner Inflow

The government has imposed higher levies for overseas labor and set tighter limits on employing non-Singaporeans in some industries since 2010 amid unhappiness over an influx of foreign labor that strained infrastructure and pushed up property prices. It faced a public backlash in 2013 over a proposal to increase the population by as much as 25 percent by 2030 through immigration.

Singapore will defer increases in foreign worker levies to give companies more time to adapt to years of restricting the supply of overseas labor, Shanmugaratnam said in his budget speech in February. The next scheduled increase was to take effect in July this year, and will now be postponed to at least 2016.

State of the Economy

Lee is trying to transform the island into a global center for research and innovation as he seeks new drivers of growth while traditional ones like electronics exports falter. The city-state is in the midst of a 10-year economic restructuring plan that includes reducing reliance on cheap foreign labor and boosting productivity.

Singapore’s export-driven economy has been damped by a commodities slump, China’s slowdown and uneven recoveries in the U.S. and Europe. The economy contracted the most since 2012 in the second quarter this year, while annual growth has slowed since a record high in 2010.

“We had a big cyclical recovery in 2010, now Singapore is faced with fairly

subdued growth,” said Brian Tan, a Singapore-based economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The key difference is that we’ve gone several years into the

restructuring agenda.”