Singaporean City Council by-election, 1958

The Singapore City Council by-election of 1958 was held after the resignation of Chang Yuen Tong, a member who held the seat for Kallang Constituency. While he cited his inability to reconcile the demands of his work with those of the The Workers' Party of Singapore which he was a member, Lee Kuan Yew subsequently alleged that it was an orchestrated move by communist leader Fang Chuang Pi.

The Workers' Party fielded Lo Ka Fat to contest in the byelection, which was held on 26 July 1958. He was up against Lim Ser Puan of the Labour Front, Buang bin Omar Junid of the People's Action Party and Govindapillai Maruthamuthoo Kanagasabai, an independent.

Election deposit

The election deposit was stated at $250. As both candidates Lo Ka Fat and Govindapillai had failed to achieve the minimum 12.5% of the votes, both candidates lost their deposit.

Historical significance

This is the only by-election for the City Council and also the last City Council election before its abolishment in 1959 when People's Action Party took power in order to prevent it to serve as a government pressure group.

With this arrangement since then, all of its functions were incorporated into statutory boards, only to see these functions to be transferred out of civil service hands in 1991 to the town councils, which are managed by the relevant elected Member of Parliament (MP).

Results

By-election 1958: Kallang
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	PAP	Buang bin Omar Junid	4,279	52.0	N/A
	LF	Lim Per Suan	3,566	43.4	+20.6
	WP	Lo Ka Fat	304	3.7	-37.8
	Independent	Govindapillai Maruthamuthoo Kanagasabai	74	0.9	N/A
Majority			713	8.6	N/A
Turnout			8,331	58.2	+11.9
	PAP gain from WP		Swing	N/A

References

Elections and referendums in Singapore

General elections	1948 1951 1955 1959 1963 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1991 1997 2001 2006 2011 2015 Next

By-elections	1948 1952 1957 1961 1965 1966 1967 1970 1977 1979 1981 1992 2012 2013

Presidential elections	1993 1999‡ 2005‡ 2011 next

Local elections	1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1949 (Apr) 1949 (Dec) 1950 1951 1952 1953 1957

Referendums	1962

‡ uncontested

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, July 13, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.