Protest, voter anger put political risk in Singapore's future

But as anger swells over living costs and immigration in Singapore, one of Asia's richest and most expensive countries, the bespectacled 51-year-old unemployment counsellor is moving beyond the fringe of political activism to the center of a rancorous debate over the nation's future.

In a country where nearly all media are state-linked and open dissent can easily fall foul of the long-ruling government, Goh's call for a public protest on Saturday is striking a nerve.

It is also raising the once-absurd prospect of political risk in one of the world's biggest financial and trading centers that has been built on a reputation of stability.

Goh set up a Facebook page in early February calling for the protest after the government said the island's population of 5.3 million could grow by as much as 30 percent by 2030, mostly through foreign workers to offset a chronically low birth rate.

Since then, more than 5,300 people have said they will or may go to what Goh has billed as a peaceful, non-political demonstration at Speakers' Corner, a park exempt from otherwise strict controls on assemblies in the regimented city-state.

Such numbers would make it one of the largest demonstrations since Singapore's independence from Britain in 1963.

Founded by Lee Kuan Yew, the father of the current prime minister, the PAP is credited with transforming Singapore from a colonial outpost in the 1960s into a global business centre with world-class infrastructure, clean streets, an efficient civil service and the world's highest concentration of millionaires.

Part of that success is built on cheap foreign labor and a consumer class full of expatriates. Immigrants make up nearly 40 percent of the population, up from about 25 percent in 2000.