General elections were held for the first time in Singapore on 20 March 1948,[1] when six of the 22 seats on the Legislative Council became directly-elected.

[3] Singapore would not have multi-seat constituencies until 1988 and is the last time that multi-seat constituencies had their candidates chosen individually (as in 1988 when the GRC was introduced, the party with the most votes had their members elected en masse rather than the votes received by the candidates individually).

Parties had no fixed standard symbol and candidates had to ballot for one offered by the elections office.

In absolute numbers, Progressive Party leader Tan Chye Cheng who stood in Municipal South-West was the best performing candidate by polling 4,125 votes while A. P. Rajah of the Progressive Party who stood in Rural West was the worst performing candidate with just 460 votes.

The narrowest margin of victory was that of Tan Chye Cheng who polled just 0.7% more than his own party's second candidate Nazir Ahmad Mallal (but both were elected as Members of Municipal South West as the constituency elected 2 members who polled the first and second most votes).