GE2025: Leong Mun Wai re-elected as PSP chief ahead of general election

[SINGAPORE] Non-Constituency MP Leong Mun Wai has been re-elected as party chief of the opposition Progress Singapore Party.

Leong, who stepped down as secretary-general 13 months ago, in February 2024, will lead the party into the general election after having been re-elected to the post on March 26.

He stepped down to take responsibility for a correction direction he received under Singapore’s fake news law for a social media post.

Leong will take over the role from the party’s other NCMP, Hazel Poa. He will be the PSP’s fifth leader since its founding in 2019. Poa will be its vice-chair.

Leong told reporters he was honoured to be asked to lead the party into the election, so it can “scale greater heights.”

He said Poa has done a “tremendous job” in the last 12 months, of organising the party’s structure to be ready for the election. In that time, he has focused on ground operations, he added.

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The party leadership’s view is that he should now “orchestrate the whole campaign by integrating the structures we have, the strategies and also the ground troops that we have developed,” he said.

Leong added that there has been little change as he and Poa have always worked closely, saying: “This change is like a relay team, she did one part and then I take over.”

Poa said she is happy with the new arrangement.

She said: “Mun Wai is ready to resume the duties of the sec-gen again, and I personally have some new responsibilities coming up as a foster parent, which will take up quite a bit of my time.”

Leong was also asked about the optics of his return to the post, given the circumstances in which he stepped down last year.

“If we make a mistake, we should take responsibility. But that doesn’t mean that’s the end of one’s political career,” he replied.

“So at the right time when the situation demands, we should always step up, and that’s what I’m doing today.”

PSP founder Tan Cheng Bock, who will stay on as party chairman, said: “If we are wrong, we are wrong, but we are right, we will show you that this is the path to what we think is good for Singapore.”

He added that he is proud of Leong for owning up to his earlier mistake, and said he had told him: “You must come back.”

“It shows the strength of the individual, not to just buckle and then just go ahead and leave,” Tan said.

Tan added that there was “no contest” for the post of secretary-general. “It is just that Hazel wanted to, you know, pass the baton back to Mun Wai,” he said.

The party announced these changes at a press conference on March 26 at its headquarters in Bukit Timah Shopping Centre after the first meeting of its new central executive committee (CEC).

On March 20, the party voted six new names into its highest decision-making body, in a substantial refresh of its leadership slate.

The election was hotly contested with 24 candidates vying for 12 elected seats on CEC.

The election returned to the CEC Dr Tan and both Non-Constituency MPs, as well as, A’bas Kasmani, Wendy Low and Phang Yew Huat.

Six new names were elected. They are: Samuel Lim, Anthony Neo, S Nallakaruppan, Soh Zheng Long, Jonathan Tee and Joseph Wong.

Eight members of the previous CEC were not re-elected, including several who were candidates at the last election. They are Ang Yong Guan, Harish Pillay, Jeffrey Khoo, Nadarajah Loganathan and Lim Cher Hong.

Of these, all except Ang had sought re-election.

The new CEC was voted in by the party’s roughly 100 cadres comprising its inner circle. It will later co-opt two more cadres to form a 14-member body.

The new CEC will serve for two years until March 2027.

Poa was the PSP’s fourth secretary-general, and was the party vice-chairman prior to that.

Leong first became secretary-general in April 2023.

Francis Yuen vacated the position the month before, after spending two years in the seat.

The PSP’s founder and current chairman, Dr Tan, was its first secretary-general.

Together with Dr Tan, Leong and Poa were on the PSP’s West Coast GRC slate that lost to a PAP team led by former transport minister S Iswaran in the 2020 General Election.

It was the narrowest loss that year – which allowed the party to send Leong and Poa into Parliament as NCMPs.

The PSP is expected to contest several constituencies in the upcoming general election, including the newly redrawn West Coast-Jurong West GRC, and the neighbouring Chua Chu Kang GRC.

Its slates in these wards have not been confirmed. THE STRAITS TIMES

For more election coverage, visit our GE2025 microsite