Pritam Singh, the 48-year-old Secretary General of the Worker’s Party and Member of Singapore Parliament, who was found guilty yesterday on two counts of lying to the Committee of Privileges, gets to keep his MP seat, and he is still eligible to contest the 2025 general elections in Singapore.
Quoting Speaker of Singapore Parliament Seah Kian Peng today, The Straits Times reported that Singh could keep his Aljunied seat even though he was convicted and fined for lying to the parliamentary committee.
Singh’s conviction — the first under the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act — might have put him out of the race, had the penalty been SGD 10,000 (or more) and/or a jail term of 1 year (or more). He has been fined SGD 7,000 for each of the two charges of lying against him, taking the total penalty to SGD 14,000. However, since the fine for each single offence does not exceed the cut-off for parliamentary disqualification, Singh remains an MP and can contest the elections.
Speaker Seah told Parliament that the Singapore Attorney General’s Chambers had advised that the SGD 10,000 cut-off — one of the disqualification criteria for an MP — was based on the court penalty for one single offence, not for the cumulative penalties for two offences.
Soon after the guilty verdict was given yesterday, the Elections Department (ELD) of the Singapore Government had issued a statement that Singh would not be disqualified from contesting the 2025 general elections.
“If a person is charged with multiple offences and the sentence imposed for each of those offences does not reach the disqualification threshold of imprisonment for a term of not less than one year or to a fine of not less than SGD 10,000, the person is not disqualified from being an MP,” said the ELD. “The respective sentences for separate offences cannot be added together for this purpose.”
