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SINGAPORE: Singaporean voters will decide whether the People's Action Party (PAP) has served them well at the next general elections.

This was among the points made by Mr Chen Hwai Liang, press secretary to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in a letter to the Financial Times (FT) published on Wednesday.

Mr Chen was responding to an FT article, "Crisis spoils Singapore celebrations", by Mr John Burton.

In the Feb 12 article, Mr Burton, citing the results of an online poll, had claimed that there is "an undercurrent of public discontent" with the PAP government as Singapore goes into a sharp recession.

"Unfortunately, the online poll he cited was from a website devoted to anti-government invective," Mr Chen wrote.

"Singaporeans may be apprehensive about the financial storm raging around us, but we understand the inescapable vulnerabilities of a small, open economy, and what we must do together to pull through," he added.

Mr Chen noted that Mr Burton also highlighted losses from specific investments by Singapore government-owned entities in Western financial groups.

Government Investment Corp (GIC) and Temasek, Mr Chen said, have diversified portfolios aimed at long-term returns.

"Their performance is not measured on each individual investment but on the entire portfolio. They have suffered overall losses in this crisis like most investors in public listed assets, but by less than the decline in market indices," he added.

Mr Chen pointed out that over the 20-year period up to March 31 last year, GIC earned annualised US dollar returns of 7.8 per cent, while Temasek earned 19 per cent.

"This is not a disreputable record," Mr Chen wrote in his letter.