On Wednesday (19 July), Workers’ Party (WP) members Leon Perera and Nicole Seah resigned from the party over an extramarital affair that reportedly began shortly after the 2020 General Elections.
Mr Perera, who was also an MP in Aljunied GRC, will vacate his seat there. Other Aljunied GRC MPs will take over his constituency, chairwoman Sylvia Lim said.
During a press conference, WP secretary-general Pritam Singh called a video of the two that started spreading on Monday (17 July) an “uncanny coincidence”.
The 15-second clip was circulated just hours before Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and Tampines GRC MP Cheng Li Hui tendered their resignations from Parliament and the People’s Action Party (PAP).
However, he stopped short on publicly speculating on the timing of the video.
The timing of the video has raised eyebrows considering the fact that on the very same day, Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong announced that both Mr Tan and Ms Cheng had resigned following an affair.
Responding to a media question on the coincidental timing of the video circulating on the Internet, Mr Singh said,
Anything I say now would be speculative.
“I don’t want to encourage speculative statements in public from any party members, and I’d be concerned if we went down that road,” he added.
Acknowledging that the timing is “on a lot of people’s minds”, he said he’d leave it to everyone to draw their own conclusions on the “uncanny coincidence”.
As of 19 July, the original Facebook video uploaded by a user named Victoria Wang has been taken down.
Mr Singh said that Monday was the first time any of the party leaders had seen the video.
However, WP leaders were first made aware of affair allegations sometime between the end of 2020 and 2021 by Mr Perera’s driver.
There was no supporting evidence at the time, and when Mr Singh asked Mr Perera about the allegations, the former MP refuted them.
Mr Perera claimed there was no truth to the allegations and that he was in an ongoing dispute with his driver.
Ms Seah also denied the allegations.
After the video emerged, the party held discussions to investigate the video and the affair.
Both Mr Perera and Ms Seah then confirmed they were having an affair since GE2020 but stopped some time ago.
Mr Perera said he should have been more forthcoming when his driver first came forward with the matter.
Subsequently, Ms Seah submitted her resignation on 18 July, and Mr Perera submitted his on 19 July.
You can read their full letters here.
Mr Singh accepted both of their resignations.
In the case of Mr Perera, he said he would have recommended his expulsion had he not resigned.
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Featured image by MS News. Photography by Iskandar Rossali.
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