page_title: Parliament of Singapore
section_title: Leader of the Opposition
hierarchical_section_title: Parliament of Singapore / Composition / Leader of the Opposition
caption_attribution_description: English: Chiam See Tong at the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) rally at Choa Chu Kang Park, Singapore, on Tuesday, 2 May 2006, during the hustings for the 2006 general election. On election day, Chiam polled 55.84% of the votes to retain his seat at Potong Pasir for the sixth consecutive time since 1984.
context_page_description: The Parliament of the Republic of Singapore and the President jointly make up the legislature of Singapore. Largely based from the Westminster system, the Parliament is unicameral and is made up of Members of Parliament who are elected, as well as Non-constituency Members of Parliament and Nominated Members of Parliament who are appointed. Following the 2020 general election, 93 MPs and two NCMPs were elected to the 14th Parliament. Nine NMPs will usually be appointed.
  Between 1819, when modern Singapore was founded, and 1867, the lawmaking authorities were the British government in India and the Parliament of the United Kingdom. After the Straits Settlements became a Crown colony, this function was taken over by the Settlements' Legislative Council, which was an unelected body. Following World War II the Straits Settlements were dissolved and Singapore became a colony in its own right with its own Legislative Council. In 1948 the Constitution was amended to allow for six seats in the council to be elected; the country's first democratic elections were held that year.
context_section_description: In parliamentary systems of government on the Westminster model, the Leader of the Opposition is the MP who is the leader of the largest opposition party able and prepared to assume office if the Government resigns. This political party often forms a Shadow Cabinet, the members of which serve as opposition spokespersons on key areas of government. This is taken into consideration by the Speaker when seats in Parliament are allocated, and during a debate the MP is often given the privilege of being one of the first non-Government MPs to speak.
  Singapore presently does not have a shadow cabinet in Parliament as the People's Action Party (PAP) has held an overwhelming majority of the seats in the House since it came to power in 1959. However, at the 1991 general election four opposition politicians were elected to Parliament: Chiam See Tong, Cheo Chai Chen and Ling How Doong from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), and Low Thia Khiang from the Workers' Party of Singapore (WP). On 6 January 1992 during a Parliamentary debate on the election of the Speaker of Parliament, the Leader of the House Wong Kan Seng said that he proposed to treat Chiam, then the SDP's secretary-general, as the "unofficial Leader of the Opposition" and that the House should give him "due courtesy and precedence among Opposition MPs". He likened the situation to that in the Legislative Assembly of Singapore in 1955 when the PAP won three out of four contested seats, and Lee Kuan Yew was de facto Leader of the Opposition. After Chiam was replaced by Ling as secretary-general of the SDP in 1993, the latter was referred to as the unofficial Leader of the Opposition.
  In the 2006 general election, Chiam and Low retained their seats, and Sylvia Lim from the WP was appointed an NCMP. The prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, referred to Low, who is the WP's secretary-general, as Leader of the Opposition during a debate in the House on 13 November 2006. However, following the 2011 general election, Low announced he would not be accepting the title. He said: "Either you have a leader of the opposition, or you do not have it. There's no need to have an unofficial leader of the opposition." He also noted that the title appeared "derogatory" to him because it implied that "you only qualify as unofficial". Pritam Singh took over as the Leader of Opposition upon being elected as WP's new secretary-general on 8 April 2018. 
  Following the 2020 general election, at which the Workers' Party won ten seats, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that party leader Pritam Singh would be designated as the official Leader of the Opposition and "will be provided with appropriate staff support and resources to perform his duties".
caption: Former unofficial Leader of the Opposition Chiam See Tong at a Singapore Democratic Alliance rally on 2 May 2006 for the general election that year
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