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Parliament Will Now Have 3 Parties As PSP’s Hazel Poa & Leong Mun Wai Take NCMP Seats

2020-07-14 , 5:03 pm

If you’re confused over what an NCMP is, then you should’ve subscribed to our YouTube channel. If not, watch this and you’d understand:

Basically, the scheme ensures that even if the ruling party wins all seats, there will always be 12 opposition members in parliament.

For example, if PAP wins all 93 seats this election, Parliament will buy more chairs and have 105 seats in the house, with 12 for Non-constituency Members of Parliament, whereby they won’t take care of a constituency but would work just like an MP in Parliament.

If PAP wins 92 seats, then 11 NCMP seats will be available since 1 seat for the opposition is elected in.

And since PAP wins 83 seats out of 93 seats this election, 10 opposition members, all of them from Workers’ Party, have been elected in, so 2 NCMP seats are available.

The seats are offered to the losing team or teams (depending on how many seats are available) with the highest vote share, with a maximum of 2 from a GRC team.

Since 2 seats are available this time around, they’d be offered only to one losing team with the best results, and it’s the team from PSP that contested in West Coast GRC.

The team comprises Dr Tan Cheng Bock, Leong Mun Wai, Hazel Poa, Nadarajah Loganathan and Jeffrey Khoo. They lost with a vote share of 48.31%f—yes, it’s that close.

Dr Tan, the Secretary-General of PSP, has mentioned earlier that he’d not take the seat even if it’s offered to him.

The good Ama Keng doctor made good his promise.

Instead, his deputy Leong Mun Wai, who has once said he won’t take the seat during the campaign period as well but would let Dr Tan decide, and PSP vice-chairman Hazel Poa, will take the seats.

This means that in the next Parliament, it’s not going to be a sea of white and blue; let there be red, too.

Now, why do I say that, since the seats are offered to them the moment the election is over?

Simple: sometimes, they reject the seats, and it’ll be passed on to the next best losing team instead. It’s therefore not 101% that any losing team would take up the offer.

Both the newly minted NCMPs are former government scholars: Mr Leong was the Managing Director of OCBC Securities, Director of Merrill Lynch HK and Investment Officer of GIC, and is now CEO of investment firm Timbre Capital.

You can watch a loooooooong introduction of him, filled with images of his younger days, here:

Ms Poa, whom you might find familiar because she’s contested with National Solidarity Party in GE2011 before, used to work at the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance, and is now in the public sector too, running an education business with five centres and a private school.

You can also watch a loooooooong introduction of her here, and it’s interesting to know what her husband’s name is, too:

Parliament Will Now Have 3 Parties As PSP’s Hazel Poa & Leong Mun Wai Take NCMP Seats

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