Malaya under Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Alliance promised voters that it could work for an early merger if voted into power as they knew "exactly" what their Malayan counterparts wanted. The Malay Union which ran together with UMNO and MCA in the 1955 election, had been expelled from their alliance for putting up a candidate in the 1957 Cairnhill by-election. The current opposition party, People's Action Party, announced to contest 51 seats in the election; they released their election manifesto entitled The Tasks Ahead, and outlined the party's five-year plan to address acute problems faced by Singapore. It called for a series of policies and programmes such as the provision of low-cost housing, the strengthening of education, as well as the development of industries thus improving employment opportunities for the local population. These were in addition to the goal of attaining independence for Singapore through a merger with the Federation of Malaya. The PAP campaigned against corruption under the Lim Yew Hock government, and all party members and candidates wore a distinctive outfit of white shirts and pants (which is still the uniform of PAP candidates as of today) to represent "cleanliness" in government. SPA attempted to portray the PAP as a party being controlled by the communists, and such claims were repeated by Liberal Socialists and UMNO. Lee Kuan Yew brushed off the claims, describing them as "silly", "blabbering" and "lies". Timeline Changes to electoral boundaries The 51 seats of the Legislative Assembly were elected from single-member constituencies, with an increase of 26 seats in this election. The changes among the constituencies were: Campaign Many of the campaign issues surrounded the topic of government corruption and independence of Singapore, as well as political issues such as the communist insurgency led by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), which had been causing the Malayan Emergency. The desire for independence and self-government epitomised by the Malay term Merdeka (which translates to Independence or Free), had started to become immediate. This was reflected when the cry of "We want Merdeka now!" was taken up by those demanding immediate independence. Prior to the polling day, the press had predicted that the presence of multi-cornered fights would only split the anti-PAP vote, raising chances of a PAP victory. Chew Swee Kee affair The Chew Swee Kee affair was also a notable issue raised in the May 1959 elections. In February 1959, PAP charged the incumbent