private members’ bills, or requiring government responses to specific issues raised
in parliamentary petitions or adjournment motions.
52
The 2010 amendment also raised the number of non-constituency MPs
(NCMPs) from six to nine, with the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA)^53 amended
accordingly. This scheme was introduced in 1984 to guarantee the presence of a
parliamentary opposition, even if none were elected.^54 Section 3 of the
PEA originally provided for up to three NCMP seats to be offered to the top three
losing opposition candidates, provided they won a minimum of 15 per cent of
the valid votes in their contested ward. If more than three opposition candidates
are returned, no NCMP seats are offered. If two are returned, one NCMP seat is
offered and so on. Thus the size of parliament is variable, the scheme assuming that
the size of a parliamentary opposition will be minuscule. This scheme continued to
operate until the 2006 general election, when only two opposition politicians were
elected,
55
and one NCMP seat was offered.
56
Although opposition parties oppose
the scheme, they pragmatically accept an offered NCMP seat as a way to gain
national exposure and parliamentary experience.
57
After the 2011 election, three NCMP seats were offered as six opposition polit-
icians were directly elected.
58
Like NMPs, NCMPs enjoy all the privileges and
immunities that elected MPs enjoy, but have limited voting rights which do not
extend to supply or constitutional amendment bills or no-confidence votes.
59
Unlike NMPs, they are partisan politicians. The NCMP scheme should fall into
(^52) NMP Walter Woon and the Maintenance of Parents Act (Cap 167 B); NMP Siew’s failed
petition to decriminalise sodomy; NMPs raising adjournment motions to debate national
issues, e.g. Kalyani Mehta (elder care), Thio Li-ann (by-elections) and Viswa Sadasivan
(Nation-building). Notably, the High Court affirmed that the PM had discretion under the
PEA on when to call by-elections:Vellamav.AG[ 2012 ] SGHC 155. After the Workers’
Party MP in Hougang SMC resigned in February 2012 , by-elections were called in May,
with the Workers’ Party retaining the seat: ‘Png Eng Huat Wins Hougang By-election’,
channelnewsasia.com, 26 May 2012.
(^53) Section 52 , Cap 218.
(^54) ‘We have sensed people want to have a good government plus a few good people to query
the government’: Minister C.T. Goh,Straits Times, 21 May 1984.
(^55) Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir) and Low Thia Khiang (Hougang).
(^56) Sylvia Low (Workers’ Party) accepted the seat. She was subsequently elected to parliament
in the 2011 general election when her party won Aljunied GRC.
(^57) In accepting the NCMP seat after the 2011 election, the Singapore People’s Party issued a
statement that the seat was critical ‘to stay engaged with national issues through parlia-
mentary debates, and to remain publicly visible in the eyes of all Singaporeans for the next
five years’. ‘Lina Chiam Accepts NCMP Seat’,Today, 13 May 2011.
(^58) The highest-polling opposition candidates were from two single-member constituencies
(SMCs): Potong Pasir, where Lina Chiam (Singapore People’s Party) polled 7 , 878 votes
( 49. 6 per cent), and Joo Chiat, where Yee Jenn Jong (Workers’ Party) polled 9 , 278 ( 49 per
cent). The third seat was to go to the five-member Workers’ Party team that lost East Coast
GRC, polling 49 , 429 ( 45. 2 per cent) of the vote.
(^59) Art. 39 ( 2 ).