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Results: People's Action Party
Workers' Party of Singapore
Singapore Democratic Alliance
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The Singaporean parliamentary general elections of 2001 were held on 3 November. The People's Action Party, the incumbent ruling party, won 82 out of 84 seats in the election, including 55 walkovers. Due to the large number of uncontested seats, only 675,306 of the 2,036,923 eligible voters (33.2%) actually voted.
The ruling PAP was facing one of the toughest hurdles in its history. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong originally intended for the election to take place in 2002, but in late 2001, Singapore was saddled with the worst economic crisis since independence, after the events of the 11 September attacks in the United States.
For the first time since 1963, a formal political umbrella emerged from within the opposition. The four-party Singapore Democratic Alliance was established with Chiam See Tong as chief, consisting of the Singapore People's Party he led, which was the leader party, National Solidarity Party (NSP), PKMS and Singapore Justice Party (SJP). NSP provided the bulk of nine candidates, SPP four and PKMS providing a required minority candidate.
Former WP Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam (J. B. Jeyaretnam), who lost his seat after being declared a bankrupt owing to lawsuits by PAP leaders, resigned from the party, citing disagreements with the present leadership. Sole WP MP Low Thia Khiang took over as secretary-general.