Former National Solidarity Party (NSP) secretary-general and lawyer Tan Lam Siong has declared he will be running in Potong Pasir SMC as an independent candidate in the coming elections.
This means he will likely enter a three-cornered fight at Potong Pasir, with Lina Chiam of the Singapore People’s Party, and Sitoh Yi Pin of the People’s Action Party.
Mr Tan said he had previously expressed interest in running in Whampoa, where he had been working the ground and where he said he had become familiar with the residents there. But after the SMC was merged with the reconstituted Jalan Besar GRC in the electoral boundaries report, he has decided to contest in Potong Pasir SMC instead.
This decision by Mr Tan has garnered plenty of negative responses from opposition supporters. Insults and accusations against him have been posted online and people are still calling him to back out from the three-cornered contest – even opposition party leaders such as Goh Meng Seng and Kenneth Jeyarathnam have stepped in to persuade him to join their parties to contest in the upcoming General Election.
Sitoh Yih Pin won over Potong Pasir from the Singapore People’s Party in 2011 with a thin margin of 114 votes, and opposition supporters are saying that Mr Tan’s intrusion in the SMC will cause votes to be lost from Mrs Chiam, with comparisons being made to the Presidential Election in 2011, which was a four-cornered fight.
Hear what Mr Tan has to say about his desire to contest Potong Pasir SMC:
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