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Abstract
Singapore's HDB provides public housing for its people and is the congee of socio-political stability in the nation. Affordable housing has not only guaranteed home ownership for the bulk of the population but also has historically been an instrument of political governance. Public housing in a larger mechanism serves to reward the PAP with established advantages and further induce distorting political dynamics in the country. The paper purports to see to what extent HDB upgrading programs influence voting behavior and whether they constitute a form of clientelism or political coercion. The study places Singapore in the larger spectrum of hybrid regimes, where state resources are habitually used for consolidating political control. Singapore's public housing system, under the purview of the Housing and Development Board (HDB), is famous for providing affordable housing to over 80 percent of the citizens. Instances of clientelism imply a strategic swapping of state benefits for political support, whereas electoral bribes can be deemed coercive or transaction-dominated methods of influencing voter choice. Labeling Singapore as a soft authoritarian regime indicates the country's singular mix of electoral formalities and tightly managed political competition. By analyzing upgrading programs under HDB within this setting, the research elucidates the informal creation of political legitimacy through mechanisms that do not require outright oppression but rather everyday tools of governance. This leads to a finer understanding of how modern-day states shape voter choice and entrench power differently-not outrightly violating democratic norms but subversively bending them from within.