Resident at Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC set to collect signatures for by-election petition

A resident at Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC is organising a parliamentary petition to call for a by-election at his GRC in light of the resignation of Mdm Halimah Yacob as the minority candidate of the ward.

Abdul Salim Harun, a former candidate for Marine Parade GRC in General Election 2011 and activist, will be going visiting some blocks tomorrow to collect signatures from residents for a petition to the Parliament for a by-election at the GRC.

Just this Monday, Mdm Halimah, former Member of Parliament at Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC and Speaker of Parliament, resigned from her MP seat and position as Speaker so as to prepare to stand as a candidate in the upcoming Presidential Election in September.

As Mdm Halimah is the only minority candidate in the GRC, there will be no minority representative in the Parliament for the GRC after her resignation. However, People’s Action Party has since arranged Mr Zaqy Mohamad, MP for Choa Chu Kang GRC to take over the position of adviser to Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC Grassroots Organisation. Minister at Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing has also earlier said in Parliament that there will be no by-election if Mdm Halimah vacate her seat as MP at the GRC.

Speaking to TOC, Salim said that the reasons for why he is doing the petition are two-fold,  one is that he believes that Singaporeans need to stand up for our democratic right in a non-confrontational way and secondly, even though Mr Zaqy Mohamad have assigned to replace Mdm Halimah for Marsiling Division, he is not elected by the residents and is not part of the group of candidates which contested under Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC.

Salim said that he has no target number of signatures to be collected as yet but he is trying get as much support from the residents at the GRC. The Saturday’s collection will be a full day focused at the Marsiling area and there are intentions to carry future collections, with the next collection being on the upcoming weekend at other parts of the GRC.

He shared that there are only two persons confirmed to be joining the signature collection for tomorrow morning at Blk 23 Marsiling Drive, 10am. Individuals who are interested in helping out in the petition can contact Salim through his Facebook page and also be updated on details from his Facebook posting.