WP's Lee Li Lian, Dennis Tan, Leon Perera declared as elected NCMPs

SINGAPORE - Ms Lee Li Lian, Mr Dennis Tan, and Mr Leon Perera from the Workers' Party (WP) have been elected as Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs), the Elections Department (ELD) said in a statement today.

Under general election rules, a total of nine NCMPs can be declared elected, less the number of opposition MPs in the new Parliament. The WP won six seats following last Friday's general election.

As six opposition MPs were elected to Parliament in this general election, three candidates who received the highest votes amongst the unelected candidates from the opposition parties shall be declared elected as NCMPs, the ELD statement said.

Ms Lee's NCMP seat was confirmed after she finished top among the losing candidates with 48.24 per cent of the vote in Punggol East Single-Member Constituency (SMC).

Behind the 37-year-old was Mr Tan, 45, who won 42.48 per cent of the vote in Fengshan SMC. The WP's East Coast GRC team were next in line with 39.27 per cent of the vote. The team comprised Mr Perera, 44, Mr Gerald Giam, 37, Mr Daniel Goh, 42, and Mr Mohamed Fairoz Shariff, 36.

"The Returning Officer wrote to the group on September 15 and asked the group to determine amongst themselves, by Sept 22, the one to be declared elected as an NCMP. The group informed the Returning Officer on Sept 16 of their decision to nominate Mr Leon Perera as the one to be declared elected as NCMP," the ELD said.

Earlier, WP chairman Sylvia Lim had said that they will decide whether to take up all three seats and who will take them. Her comments came after Ms Lee was quoted as saying that she might not take up the NCMP seat, a choice that Ms Lim said she understood.

"If you are an elected MP, and the voters have decided not to re-elect you as MP for that constituency, it doesn't make sense for you to stay on as NCMP because the voters' decision has to stand," she told reporters on Monday.

huizhen@sph.com.sg