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SINGAPORE: With less than a week to go before the May 3 polls, The Independent Singapore would like to hazard a guess as to who may be $13,500 poorer by the time votes are counted. We’re talking about the deposit amount each candidate must pay, as announced by the Elections Department (ELD) on April 15.
Under the Parliamentary Elections Act of 1954, the deposit for each candidate is the fixed monthly allowance payable to an elected MP for the month immediately before the date of dissolution of Parliament, rounded to the nearest $500. If a candidate is unable to win more than 12.5 per cent of the votes in their constituency, their election deposit is forfeited.
For this year, who could that be?
As elections are a numbers game, it stands to reason that the more candidates there are in any given constituency, the bigger their chances of losing their deposit, which is probably partly the reason for all the talk about the smaller opposition parties wanting to avoid multi-cornered fights in the run-up to Nomination Day.
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Tampines GRC candidates from the National Solidarity Party (NSP) and the People’s Power Party (PPP) may not have it easy. While the NSP put up a good fight against the PAP in GE 2020 in Tampines, winning 33.59% of the vote, this year is a different story. The WP team, led by vice chair Faisal Manap, together with former IMH director Ong Lue Ping, former diplomat Eileen Chong, Harvard graduate Michael Thng, and business owner Jimmy Tan, is a force to reckon with. While he has kept a lower profile than the WP luminaries, Mr Manap remains popular with the communities he represents.
PPP chief Goh Meng Seng leads his party’s team at Tampines. In 2020, he ran against the PAP’s Tin Pei Ling at MacPherson SMC, winning 28.26% of the votes, which meant he got his deposit back. This year, however, he hasn’t exactly endeared himself to voters.
One or both opposition parties contesting at Ang Mo Kio GRC could also lose their deposit. The PAP team is led by former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, making it a PAP stronghold. In the last election, the Reform Party challengers managed to win 28.09% of the votes. This year, the PPP and the Singapore United Party (SUP) are both fielding candidates at Ang Mo Kio.
The third three-cornered fight is in Sembawang GRC. In 2020, the PAP team at Sembawang lost almost 5 percentage points to NSP compared to the 2015 polls. This year, however, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) entered the fray, led by Dr James Gomez, which may well split the opposition’s vote share. If, however, it’s divided evenly between the over 32% of votes that NSP received in 2020, then the deposits of the NSP and SDP candidates are safe.
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At Potong Pasir SMC this year, with incumbent Sitoh Yih Pin stepping down, the PAP is fielding Alex Yeo, a former branch chairman at Aljunied. Mr Yeo is up against the Singapore People’s Party’s (SPP) Williamson Lee, as well as longtime politician Lim Tean from the People’s Alliance for Reform, either of whom could end up losing their deposit.
The seat of Potong Pasir is up for grabs, although the PAP won in the last election with 60.67%, and momentum is on its side. However, from 1984 to 2011, opposition leader Chiam See Tong from the SDP had held the seat at Potong Pasir, and residents may want to give it back to an opposition politician this year.
Finally, at Radin Mas SMC, there are also three candidates vying for the seat: the incumbent, PAP’s Melvin Yong, PAR’s Kumar Appavoo, and an independent candidate, Darryl Lo. Mr Appavoo received nearly 26% of the votes at Radin Mas in 2020, which means Mr Lo will have to fight hard not to lose his deposit. /TISG
Read also: Rotten Tomatoes: Here are the cringiest GE2025 candidates so far
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