2001 Singaporean general election
General elections were held in Singapore on 3 November 2001. The ruling People's Action Party won 82 of the 84 elected seats in Parliament. Due to the large number of uncontested seats, only 675,306 of the 2,036,923 eligible voters had an opportunity to vote. As of the recent election in 2020, this was the most recent, and fourth overall election PAP returned to power on nomination day with a majority of uncontested walkovers. The election marked Goh Chok Tong's last election in which he led the party into a general election; his successor, Lee Hsien Loong, would succeed Goh on 12 August 2004.
Background
The ruling PAP's secretary-general and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong initially scheduled for the election to be held in 2002, but pushed to November after Singapore faced an economic crisis due to the events of September 11 attacks in the United States.For the first time since 1963, a formal political umbrella emerged from within the opposition. The four-party Singapore Democratic Alliance, which consist of the leader party Singapore People's Party, the National Solidarity Party, Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura and Singapore Justice Party, was led by Chiam See Tong. SDA fielded the most candidates in the election, where NSP provided the bulk of nine candidates, SPP with four, and PKMS providing a required minority candidate.
Former Workers' Party Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, who lost his seat after being declared a bankrupt owing to lawsuits by PAP leaders, resigned from the party, citing disagreements with the present leadership. The only WP Member of Parliament, Low Thia Khiang took over as secretary-general. During nomination day, WP was nominated on only two wards, as their sole GRC team who attempt to nominate in Aljunied Group Representation Constituency was disqualified for filing incomplete papers.
A seat had been vacated in 1999 after the conviction of Jalan Besar GRC's MP Choo Wee Khiang over commercial crimes, but no by-election was held as the seat was within a GRC. Under the law, an entire electoral constituency has to be vacated before a by-election could be called, as this was done during the Marine Parade GRC by-election of 1992.
Campaign
This election saw its shortest campaigning period of 17 days after opening of the register of electors, as well as the absence of four-member GRCs from the electoral map. Another increase of the election deposit amount this time was the most significant one in history, which almost doubled.The end result saw WP's Low and SDA's Chiam retaining their seats, but saw their winning margins slashed from the 1997. With these two opposition wins, one NCMP seat was offered to and accepted by Steve Chia of Singapore Democratic Alliance, who became the youngest and first-ever non-WP NCMP.
Chee Soon Juan incident
leader Chee Soon Juan came under fire in the media when he encountered Prime Minister Goh while campaigning at a hawker centre. He used a megaphone to ask Goh, "Where is the $18 billion that you have lent to Suharto?". Goh and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew sued Chee for defamation shortly after the election.Chee lost the lawsuits and was ordered to pay damages of S$300,000 to Goh and S$200,000 to Lee. On 10 February 2006, Chee was declared bankrupt by the High Court after failing to pay the damages owed to Goh and Lee, and was unable to stand in the elections held later May that year, until on 23 November 2012 where Chee was discharged from bankruptcy, and later returned to participate in the 2015 elections.
Timeline
Electoral boundaries
| Constituency | Changes |
| Aljunied GRC | Absorbed the southern Punggol divisions from Cheng San GRC, and Lorong Halus area/Paya Lebar Air Base from Pasir Ris GRC Kampong Kembangan division was split into Aljunied-Kembangan and Kembangan-Punggol divisions, while Punggol South division was renamed to Aljunied–Hougang Carved out Changi-Simei division to East Coast GRC and Aljunied division to Marine Parade GRC |
| Ang Mo Kio GRC | Ward upsized to six members Absorbed Cheng San and Jalan Kayu divisions from Cheng San GRC Ang Mo Kio division was absorbed into Yio Chu Kang and Teck Ghee divisions |
| Bishan–Toa Payoh GRC | No Change in Boundaries |
| East Coast GRC | Absorbed Changi-Simei division from Aljunied GRC Carved out Joo Chiat division into SMC |
| Holland–Bukit Panjang GRC | New Constituency Formed with Ulu Pandan, Bukit Panjang and Buona Vista divisions from Bukit Timah GRC, Sembawang GRC and Tanjong Pagar GRC, respectively Bukit Panjang divisions was split to include Cashew and Zhenghua divisions, while some of Zhenghua division was split from Tanglin division |
| Hong Kah GRC | Absorbed Bukit Gombak SMC, and a portion of Chua Chu Kang SMC Carved out Hong Kah East division to Jurong GRC Hong Kah West was merged into Nanyang division |
| Jalan Besar GRC | Ward upsized to five members Absorbed Kampong Glam SMC, Kreta Ayer and Kim Seng divisions from Kreta Ayer–Tanglin GRC Geylang West division was absorbed into Kolam Ayer and Jalan Besar divisions |
| Jurong GRC | New Constituency Formed from a majority of Bukit Timah GRC, and Hong Kah East division from Hong Kah GRC Jurong division was split into Pioneer and Taman Jurong divisions, while Bukit Batok East division was formed from portions of Bukit Batok, Bukit Gombak & Bukit Timah divisions |
| Marine Parade GRC | No Change in Boundaries |
| Pasir Ris–Punggol GRC | New Constituency Formed from Pasir Ris GRC and northern Punggol divisions of Cheng San GRC |
| Sembawang GRC | Carved out Nee Soon East division into SMC, and Bukit Panjang division into Holland–Bukit Panjang GRC Sembawang and Woodlands division were split to include Canberra and Admiralty divisions respectively |
| Tampines GRC | Ward upsized to five members Absorbed Pasir Ris South division from Pasir Ris GRC |
| Tanjong Pagar GRC | Absorbed Moulmein and Tanglin divisions from Kreta Ayer–Tanglin GRC Carved out Buona Vista division to Holland–Bukit Panjang GRC Leng Kee division was absorbed into Queenstown, Radin Mas and Tanglin-Cairnhill divisions |
| West Coast GRC | Ward upsized to five members Absorbed Boon Lay SMC and some of Bukit Timah GRC Pasir Panjang division was dissolved into Telok Blangah and West Coast divisions |
Outgoing/New MPs
There were a total of 40 candidates making their political debut in the 2001 election. Among the new faces were Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Halimah Yacob who would later become future Senior Minister and President of Singapore, respectively. 24 incumbent MPs retired prior to the announcements. 15 candidates outside PAP were also new, among which new faces include Chee Siok Chin, sister of the SDP's leader Chee Soon Juan, as well as Desmond Lim, who would later lead the newly-formed SDA in future years, and a future Perennial candidate Ooi Boon Ewe.| New PAP candidates | Outgoing MPs | New opposition candidates |
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- Richard Hu initially announced that he would seek another term in leading a team for the new Holland–Bukit Panjang GRC, but the idea was scrapped.
Results