Gerrymandering is a popular tactics used by PAP in Singapore, to ensure they stay in power. In most democracies the Govt., Supreme Court and the Election Commission are independent of each other. Thereby elections are run fairly. But in Singapore, the election commission and supreme court is run by the govt. in power. This makes it easier for the party in power to sustain it's reign.
Gerrymandering would be somewhat curtailed (not nullified, I agree) if most of the people would have supported the opposition. They just don't. In the last General Elections, PAP's margin of victory did shrink from the past but it was still a pretty big margin[0].
I'm not saying they don't give themselves unfair advantages in the election, but that's a very different thing to, say, Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Putin's Russia where power was simply seized and held onto with no accountability to the people.
If the PAP torpedoed the entire economy because of some stupid beliefs of the leader, they would be quickly and quietly removed.