2001 General Election
The SDA fielded 13 candidates in two Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) and three Single Member Constituencies (SMCs), and secured 12.0% of the votes cast in the general election.
The SDA's Chairman, Chiam See Tong, became the first (and to date only) MP elected under the SDA banner when he was re-elected as MP for Potong Pasir. (He had previously been elected as a Singapore People's Party representative in 1997, and as a Singapore Democratic Party representative in 1984, 1988 and 1991.)
SDA member Steve Chia (the leader of the National Solidarity Party) also entered Parliament as a non-constituency MP after securing 34.6% of the votes in the constituency of Chua Chu Kang, which was the highest percentage of the vote secured by a losing opposition candidate at the election.
The result made Chiam the de facto leader of the opposition in Parliament, as the SDA had two representatives (Chiam and Chia), whereas the only other opposition party represented in Parliament (the Worker's Party) had only one (Hougang MP Low Thia Khiang).
Read more about this topic: Singapore Democratic Alliance
Famous quotes containing the words general and/or election:
“All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“In every election in American history both parties have their clichés. The party that has the clichés that ring true wins.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)