While the People's Action Party of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong is expected to be returned to power with a large majority of seats in parliament, analysts say that the key question is whether rising unemployment and voter dissatisfaction will translate into significant gains for the fractured opposition. In the last election, in January 1997, the governing party won 65 percent of the valid votes to take 81 of the 83 seats.

That was before the financial crisis struck East Asia later in the year, sending many of the region's previously high-growth economies, including Singapore's, into a temporary slump. Most recovered strongly by 1999, only to be hit again by the collapse in demand for Asian electronic and other exports in major Western markets.

Mr Goh called the widely anticipated election on Thursday, 10 months before the government's mandate was to expire in August 2002. He did so, he said, because the terrorist attacks on the United States last month had convinced him that Singapore was facing its most serious crisis since attaining its independence in 1965. Official and private economists are forecasting that Singapore's economy will shrink by about 3 percent in 2001, after growing by nearly 10 percent last year.

"I'm concerned now that, after Sept 11, recession will set in, and it may last as long as the first half of next year," Mr Goh said, referring to the date of the terrorist attacks in the United States.

He added that he wanted to get the elections out of the way so that the government could better concentrate on the big problems facing the country, including rising unemployment, security and the need to continue far-reaching, but often painful, reforms to the trade-dependent economy.

After generating many new jobs in 2000 as the economy forged ahead, Singapore is expected to lose 25,000 jobs in 2001, mainly in the second half of the year, as the unemployment rate rises to about 4.5 percent of the work force.

For a country that has had virtually full employment for more than a generation, this is a shock and the government is seeking to cushion the effects in a variety of ways. Just days before announcing the election, it unveiled an economic stimulus package worth S$11.3 billion (US$6.2 billion), equivalent to 7 percent of the country's gross national product. The package, to be financed from previous budget surpluses, included cuts in taxes and utility charges, infrastructure spending and a novel share program for nearly all citizens that can quickly be converted to cash and is designed to give the most benefit to people on lower incomes and to the elderly.

The 17-day gap between the election call on Thursday and voting day on Nov. 3 is the shortest on record for Singapore, prompting complaints from the 22 opposition parties.

"They are afraid of losing," said Steve Chia, an official of the opposition National Solidarity Party. "That's why they are using such underhand tactics by not giving the opposition any preparation time."

There have also been accusations of gerrymandering. Shortly before the election date was announced, electoral boundaries were redrawn, enlarging the size of multiple-seat wards while leaving nine single-seat wards.

The small and often poorly funded and organized opposition parties complain that the multiple-seat wards, each of which returns five or six members of Parliament, are difficult for them to contest. The party that wins the most votes in a ward gets all the seats. The People's Action Party, which has dominated politics in Singapore since independence from Britain, dismisses such criticism as the complaints of parties that lack credible alternative programs.

Officials said that, more than ever, Singapore needs experienced and stable leadership to guide it through the stormy and uncertain period ahead.

What Singapore needs, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, is "Singaporeans working together with a tested, reliable, competent government."