Lee Kuan Yew, the PAP's founder and Singapore's first prime minister, delivered a speech on Sunday night to mark the party's 50th anniversary emphasising it must continue to evolve if it is to maintain its grip on power.

"Will economic growth alone ensure that the PAP can retain its support for the next 50 years? It will help but will not be decisive," 81-year-old Lee said as he outlined a range of broad strategies for political dominance.

"To win support, we must offer superior leadership and capabilities as against what other parties can provide."

Lee said the key to PAP's longevity was its continual self-renewal, as well as ensuring debates of national importance were held within the confines of  its own party rather than through a competitive multi-party democracy.

"Arguments on alternative policies and different futures can be intra-party rather than inter-party. If we do not have these arguments within the party, they will surface as inter-party competition," he said.

Delivering the speech at the Victoria Concert Hall where he founded the PAP on November 21, 1954, Lee listed his and and the party's achievements in lifting Singapore's economy from third-world status to first.

He said abandoning the PAP's initial socialist platform for "pragmatic" free market policies was integral to the nation's economic success.

Lee still enjoys strong influence over Singapore's political system through his Cabinet position of Mentor Minister, which was specifically created for him when his son, Lee Hsien Loong, became prime minister in August.

Mentor Minister is the third most senior rank in government.

Lee was the Southeast Asian nation's prime minister from independence in 1965 to 1990, when he stepped down for Goh Chok Tong. Goh led the nation for 14 years while the younger Lee was being groomed for the premiership.

As the PAP plans for future political dominance and general elections by 2007, the opposition continues to barely have an impact.

Under the nation's complicated electoral system, the PAP won 82 of the 84 seats in parliament at the last general election in 2001 with 75.29 percent of the vote.

The local media, which is ordered to report in what the government deems to be the "national interests", also rarely dissents against PAP policies.

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