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As in Malaya, political institutionalization in Singapore proceeded on parallel local and national tracks against a backdrop of postwar reconstruction, anticommunism, ethnic tension, and uncertainty about the benefits and disadvantages of independence and uniting with Malaya. Yet Singapore presented a different environment: it had a more solid Chinese—and hence substantially settler—majority (though with an uneasy mix of Chinese-educated and English-educated), a much smaller land area, a population less inclined toward Indonesia or pan-Malayism, and, postwar, a fully separate administrative structure. That the People’s Action Party (PAP) would become dominant was not initially clear; the party formed after elections were under way, its growing pains were severe, and the British were decidedly chary of it. Nor was it initially apparent what cleavages—for instance, communal, ideological, class—would define the party system as parties emerged in the late 1940s. Tumultuous rivalries both within and among parties, amid British and local concerns about communists, communalists, and Singapore’s viability, cast long shadows. The Emergency began in June 1948, three months after Singapore’s first elections. Threats of unrest, real or trumped-up, yielded institutional constraints still important to regime maintenance, worry over infiltration encouraged parties to adopt cadre structures ather than embrace a mass base, and bitter contests inspired habits of laboriously maintained clientelism. Singapore’s distinctive regime, combining hegemonic authority, pragmatism over ideology, and a near-compulsive service orientation rests on this early foundation, as competition gave way within only about a decade to firm one-party dominance.