Members of Parliament

Members of Parliament (MPs) consist of elected, non-constituency and nominated Members. The majority of MPs are elected into Parliament at a General Election on a first-past-the-post basis and represent either Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) or Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs).

MPs act as a bridge between the community and the Government by ensuring that the concerns of their constituents are heard in Parliament. The present Fourteenth Parliament has 98 MPs, consisting of 87 elected MPs, 2 Non-Constituency MPs (NCMPs) and 9 Nominated MPs (NMPs).

Elected Members

In GRCs, political parties field a team of between 3 and 6 candidates. At least one candidate in the team must belong to a minority race. This requirement ensures that parties contesting the elections in GRCs are multi-racial so that minority races will be represented in Parliament. There were 17 GRCs and 14 SMCs in the 2020 General Election.

Non-Constituency Members

The Constitution allows for up to 12 NCMPs to be declared as elected. NCMPs are declared as MPs from opposition candidates who had contested in a General Election, were not voted in but had received the highest percentage of votes amongst the unelected candidates from the opposition parties. This ensures there will always be a minimum number of opposition members in Parliament and that views other than the Government’s can be expressed in Parliament.

Nominated Members

A constitutional provision for the appointment of up to 9 Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) was made in 1990 to ensure a wide representation of community views in Parliament. NMPs are appointed by the President of Singapore for a term of two and a half years on the recommendation of a Special Select Committee of Parliament chaired by the Speaker. NMPs contribute independent and non-partisan views in Parliament.