Lawyer a potential PAP candidate
PUBLISHED ONApril 28, 2014 11:15 PMByGrace Chua
SINGAPORE - Corporate lawyer Amrin Amin, 35, was yesterday introduced to the media as a potential People's Action Party (PAP) candidate for Parliament.
He attended the ground-breaking ceremony for a new integrated "kampung" development combining Housing Board studio apartments, a medical centre and other amenities at Admiralty.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary Hawazi Daipi, an MP for Sembawang GRC, said: "I look at Amrin as someone who has the potential to be a candidate, but it depends very much on him and whether the party assesses that he can do the job in serving the community and Singapore."
Mr Amrin has volunteered in grassroots organisations for a decade and is now a member of the Marsiling Citizens Consultative Committee (CCC).
His was the second such introduction in a week. Last Sunday, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen introduced two potential candidates in his Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC and said many new faces were active on the ground in GRCs across Singapore, well ahead of the next general election which must be held by January 2017.
The move is in response to Singaporeans' feedback after the 2011 General Election that they prefer candidates who have spent some time on the ground before the polls, Dr Ng said.
Mr Amrin, a solicitor at law firm Watson, Farley & Williams Asia Practice LLP, has been on the Marsiling committee for a year, but first volunteered in the Chong Pang CCC in 2004 after he graduated from the National University of Singapore.
In 2006, he received a scholarship from the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) to do a master's degree in law at Columbia University.
The alumnus of Dunman Secondary School and Tampines Junior College said: "I received a lot of help from many people along the way, and I just want to give back."
He is also a National Council of Problem Gambling council member and sits on Nanyang Polytechnic's board of governors.
This article was published on April 27 in The Straits Times.
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