Addressing the Annual Public Service Leadership Ceremony on Wednesday (September 18), Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong cautioned about the dangers of a more fiercely contested political environment.
“It will become harder to disregard short-term considerations in decision-making. The political dynamics will become very different,” he said.
Meanwhile, the opposition is on a roll, and with fresh faces like Senior Counsel Harpreet Singh Nehal joining the Workers’ Party (WP), the People’s Action Party (PAP) might have reasons to worry.
Who is Harpreet Singh?
Harpreet Singh is currently the co-managing partner of Audent Chambers, a boutique law firm he founded in 2019. As a Senior Counsel, he is recognised as one of Singapore’s top legal professionals, a title bestowed on only 98 individuals by the Singapore Academy of Law.
Other prominent Senior Counsel in politics include K Shanmugam, the Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law, and Edwin Tong, the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth and Second Minister for Law.
Harpreet’s entry into politics was nothing short of extraordinary. At just 30 years old, he publicly confronted then-Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew during a televised forum on the Singapore Dream in 1996. He raised concerns about the perceived lack of resilience in Singapore’s “post-independence generation,” of which he was a part.
While Harpreet was not initially interested in a political career, his outlook has changed. In a recent interview with Jom, he expressed his readiness to stand for the opposition Workers’ Party (WP) in Singapore’s next General Election (GE), due by November 2025.
Why did he join the Workers’ Party?
Harpreet Singh’s political journey is compelling, particularly given that he once sought to join the ranks of the PAP. Prior to the 2006 GE, he aspired to wear the party’s signature white, as he believed that PAP offered a chance to do good.
With Lee Hsien Loong newly appointed as Prime Minister and calling for greater openness, Harpreet was drawn to the party’s more “liberal voices”, such as Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Raymond Lim, and former nominated Members of Parliament (MPs) like Kanwaljit Soin and Braema Mathi, whom he greatly respected.
Though he didn’t make the cut, Harpreet revealed in the interview with Jom that his political beliefs haven’t changed since then. He also applied to be a nominated MP in 2007, after he became a Senior Counsel, but was again not chosen.
Harpreet’s disillusionment with the PAP grew in the 2010s, as the party’s vote share plummeted from 75.3 per cent in the 2001 GE to 61.2 per cent by 2020. He believes that a pivotal moment for the PAP came when they chose not to select Tharman as Lee’s successor.
According to him, the political landscape became “more hostile” to independent, critical thought from that point, adding that he had identified troubling signs of authoritarianism over the past decade under Lee.
I just don’t see the system evolving…I just don’t see this thing self-correcting. It’s moved so far down in a rightward direction that anyone hoping for change to come from within the PAP is going to be disappointed.
– Harpreet Singh Nehal
A “big fish” for the Workers’ Party
Harpreet Singh, mentored by former PAP MP Davinder Singh during his time at Drew & Napier, brings an insider’s understanding of Singapore’s political establishment to the opposition. His connections with key establishment figures and his decision to join the WP have led some online commentators to label him a “big fish” for the WP.
In 2021, Harpreet began volunteering alongside former WP MP Leon Perera at community events. While his disappointment with the PAP deepened, WP inspired him.
Leon Perera describes Harpreet as a “conviction politician”—someone driven by the desire to improve things for future generations, willing to invest time and energy, and ready to take risks in order to give back to the country.
In a May commentary titled “Should Singaporeans vote for a stronger opposition?”, Harpreet outlined his vision for the city-state: political plurality, including more diverse viewpoints leading to better policy-making, greater political engagement, fostering open-mindedness and creativity to bolster a knowledge economy.
Harpreet’s WP walkabouts have also shaped his understanding of Singapore’s evolving socio-economic landscape further. He has been particularly struck by how many, especially Chinese households, aren’t fluent in English and are disconnected from better opportunities.
This insight has fueled his ideas for neighbourhood reading programs, and he champions for a more inclusive education system.
Harpreet’s pro-bono work, on the other hand, showcases his commitment to defending the underdog, from representing a childhood friend in a landmark Constitutional case to advocating for gay rights, including his involvement in the 2022 repeal of S377A.
Despite his work on S377A, Harpreet isn’t easily categorised as far left. While he opposes the mandatory death penalty, he doesn’t support its complete abolition. Instead, he believes in judicial discretion.
When it comes to freedom of speech and assembly, he believes in more open discussions on sensitive topics like race and religion, yet he’s still wary of issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict, concerned about the difficulty of managing discourse that could spiral out of control.
With Harpreet joining the WP, the opposition could stand a real chance of winning four or more additional Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) at the next GE.
In 2011, WP won Aljunied, with Chen Show Mao carrying the Party to its first GRC victory, and in 2022, the party won Sengkang GRC, with Jamus Lim shifting the electoral votes over.
Will 2025 see the WP clinch another GRC, with the Senior Counsel poised to make a similar difference?
- Read other articles we’ve written about Singapore affairs here.
Featured Image Credit: Harpreet Singh Nehal
