Malaysia: A Good Start

In an echoing Singapore badminton hall, weary workers counted and recounted the ballots far into the night. Outside. 200 police stood guard against possible violence organized by the powerful left-wing parties. But the leftists failed to marshal either rioters or voters, and moderate Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew scored an unexpected landslide for his campaign to bring Singapore into the big new federation of Britain's Malaysian territories (TIME, July 27). Glowed the Cambridge-educated Prime Minister: "It is the seal of public and popular approval for merger and Malaysia. We are off to a good start."

The Communist-lining Barisan Socialists, an extremist group that splintered from Lee's own People's Action Party in 1961, had sought to turn the referendum into a protest vote. The Socialists predicted that 70% of the ballots would be left blank, and Peking tried to buy a few votes by dangling hints that it would resume its once large rubber purchases if Singapore stayed out of the new federation. But it was Lee who wound up with 71% of the vote; barely 25% of the 561,559 ballots were blank.

Singapore will now get limited representation in the Malaysian Parliament in exchange for local control over labor and education policies (which it needs to curb Communist influence). By Aug. 31, 1963, the British-run territories of North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei are to com plete the federation with Malaya and Singapore to form a 1.600-mile crescent around the South China Sea.

Ultimately, Malaysia's success depends in large measure on its chief architect, Malayan Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman, who at 59 is troubled by insomnia and is perceptibly slowing down.

The Tengku (prince), almost alone, can bind together all the diverse elements in the nation-to-be.