SINGAPORE – With Parliament agreeing
that Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh is unsuitable to continue as Leader of the Opposition (LO)
, political analysts expect Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to make a decision on the matter, though they are divided on how soon this could happen.
Several analysts said they expect PM Wong to remove Mr Singh from the post, which is conferred by the prime minister.
Singapore Management University associate law professor Eugene Tan reckons PM Wong will “remove Pritam as LO swiftly”. “It is clear that Pritam’s days as LO are numbered,” he said.
Prof Tan added that as long as Mr Singh remains the WP’s secretary-general, the Prime Minister is unlikely to appoint another MP from the party to be LO. This means the position could remain vacant for at least three months, the expected duration of the WP’s disciplinary process.
The WP had announced on Jan 3 that it
would form a disciplinary panel
to assess whether Mr Singh had breached the party’s Constitution following his conviction, with the process expected to conclude within three months. This came after a group of WP cadre members submitted a request to hold a special conference.
On Jan 14, Parliament voted in support of a motion stating that Mr Singh was unsuitable to continue as LO after his conviction for lying to a parliamentary committee.
Following a three-hour debate, the House agreed that his conduct over
former WP MP Raeesah Khan’s 2021 lie in Parliament
fell short of the standards expected of an LO and would undermine Parliament’s standing and public confidence in Singapore’s political system.
“If Parliament has decided that Pritam should not retain the LO position, I don’t see the PM disagreeing,” said Mr Inderjit Singh, a former PAP MP who retired from politics in 2015.
Independent political observer Felix Tan expects PM Wong to issue a statement on the matter within the week.
Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) senior research fellow Gillian Koh said PM Wong could make a decision soon, or allow the WP’s disciplinary process to run its course first.
“Under that scenario, if there is to be a Leader of the Opposition and the WP is the only opposition party in the House, it stands to reason that its secretary-general is offered the position,” said Dr Koh.
If there is a change in WP’s leadership, the position of LO could be offered to the new secretary-general, she added.
Dr Koh noted that voters had not appeared to penalise the WP over
Mr Singh’s court conviction
.
In the 2025 General Election, the party’s five-member team in Aljunied GRC
retained the constituency
with 59.68 per cent of the vote, against the PAP’s 40.32 per cent.
The WP is expected to continue operating on a “business as usual” basis, she said.
Any move to remove Mr Singh as LO would be “largely symbolic”, said BowerGroupAsia managing director Nydia Ngiow.
“Regardless of title, he remains leader of the Workers’ Party, which continues to anchor the opposition presence in Parliament and functions as the de facto LO,” she said.
Dr Felix Tan agreed, saying that even without an LO, the WP can still raise questions and motions in Parliament, and the opposition presence would remain unchanged.
Analysts said the debate played out in a predictable manner, with MPs speaking and voting along party lines.
They were not surprised that the WP MPs closed ranks around Mr Singh and put up a united front, with all 11 MPs in the House voting against the motion.
The PAP MPs and Nominated MPs agreed with the motion.
All 11 WP MPs present in the House (standing) voted against the motion, which Parliament agreed to.
PHOTO: MDDI
Prof Eugene Tan said the remarks by the WP MPs who joined the debate showed that they have “put a lot of weight on Pritam’s continued belief that he is innocent and that his mistake was that he did not move quickly enough on Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament”.
IPS senior research fellow Teo Kay Key said the outcome of WP’s internal processes would be more telling of his standing within the party.
Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a senior international affairs analyst at Solaris Strategies Singapore, said the collective dissent against the motion by WP MPs “may serve as a morale and political booster for Pritam’s standing within the party against the backdrop of an internal disciplinary hearing and a special cadre members’ conference thereafter”.
Dr Tan Ern Ser, an adjunct principal research fellow at IPS, said the WP may believe that the court of opinion is on their side, and “stick to their guns”.
The WP will let its disciplinary tribunal and special cadre members’ conference run its course, and assess the broader public’s response to the debate, Dr Koh said.
“WP will likely get a sense of how other Singaporeans view the matter; whether the principles of honesty and integrity in the most important decision-making body of the land and democratic processes have been compromised or at stake… or that it actually has no impact on public sentiment or perhaps is even brushed off,” said Dr Koh.
She added that the debate in the House provided a “sobering reminder” of the duty that all MPs, both PAP and Opposition, have in maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.
“If they falter, they have to answer the case against them but how much more so if they spoke untruths before a committee hearing designed specifically to uncover untruths,” said Dr Koh.