NO LEGAL REQUIREMENT FOR BY-ELECTION
Could a general election be imminent, to fill these seats? With two years before the expiration of the current 14th Parliament, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday that his government has a full policy agenda ahead of it, with little bandwidth to call a general election.
Nor presumably can we expect by-elections. Mr Lee has not done so in past instances when GRCs lost an MP.
There is currently no legal requirement to do so, only that it must be done through an election if there is a desire to plug the gap. Mr Lee also said that “the other members of the GRC will step up and will make sure that constituents are well looked after, that’s one of the advantages of the GRC system”.
Similarly for WP, party chair Sylvia Lim said on Wednesday that the Aljunied MPs are collectively responsible for the residents in the constituency and will take over the Meet-the-People sessions in Mr Perera’s Serangoon ward.
This could remain an issue for citizens generally, but it will be pitched against the pragmatics of whether constituents on the ground itself feel they are adequately served and represented in the day-to-day issues in town council management and at Meet-the-People sessions.
The minority ministers in government will also have to demonstrate their ability to carry that burden of representation for their party too.