6th Parliament of Singapore

6th Parliament of Singapore
← 5th 7th →
Composition at the start of the Sixth Parliament of Singapore   WP (1)   SDP (1)   PAP (77)   Vacant (1)
Overview
Legislative body	Parliament of Singapore
Meeting place	Old Parliament House
Term	25 February 1985 – 17 August 1988 (3 years, 5 months and 23 days)
Election	22 December 1984
Government	People's Action Party
Opposition	Workers' Party (until 1986) Singapore Democratic Party
Parliament of Singapore
Members	80
Speaker	Yeoh Ghim Seng
Leader of the House	S. Dhanabalan (until 1987) Wong Kan Seng (from 1987)
Prime Minister	Lee Kuan Yew
Leader of the Opposition	J. B. Jeyaretnam (until 1986) Chiam See Tong (from 1986)
Party control	PAP supermajority
Sessions
1st 25 February 1985 – 27 January 1986 (11 months and 2 days) 2nd 20 February 1986 – 17 August 1988 (2 years, 5 months and 28 days)

The 6th Parliament of Singapore was a meeting of the Parliament of Singapore. Its first session commenced on 25 February 1985 and was prorogued on 27 January 1986. It commenced its second session on 20 February 1986 and was dissolved on 17 August 1988.^[1]

The members of the Sixth Parliament were elected in the 1984 general election. Parliament was controlled by a People's Action Party majority, led by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his Cabinet. Yeoh Ghim Seng served as Speaker.^[2] J. B. Jeyaretnam of the Workers' Party served as the de facto Leader of the Opposition until he was disqualified from Parliament on 10 November 1968 following a conviction over false statements about party funds.^[3] This left Chiam See Tong of the Singapore Democratic Party as the sole opposition member in Parliament. With Jeyaretnam's disqualification, this was the last instance where only two parties represented the Parliament until 2015.

The Sixth Parliament saw the implementation of the Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) scheme, which allowed for the losing opposition candidates which received the highest percentage of votes to be representated in Parliament, in order to ensure that a quota of opposition members in Parliament could be met. For the Sixth Parliament, a minimum number of three opposition members was set, allowing for one NCMP seat to be allocated. The seat was first offered to M. P. D. Nair of the Workers' Party on 24 December 1984, but the offer lapsed on 4 March 1985, without Nair accepting it. The seat was then offered to Tan Chee Kien of the Singapore United Front on 8 March 1985, who rejected it on 28 March 1985. The NCMP seat thus remained vacant for the duration of the Sixth Parliament.^[4]

The Sixth Parliament also saw the presence of female MPs for the first time since the resignation of Chan Choy Siong in 1970.^[5] Two seats were vacated in 1986 and remained so until the end of the term; the first was Jeyaretnam's, and the second was that of the PAP's Teh Cheang Wan, who committed suicide on 14 December 1986 during an investigation for alleged corruption.

Officeholders

• Speaker: Yeoh Ghim Seng (PAP)
  • Deputy Speaker: Tan Soo Khoon (PAP), from 1 March 1985
• Prime Minister: Lee Kuan Yew (PAP)
  • Deputy Prime Minister:
    • Goh Chok Tong (PAP)
    • Ong Teng Cheong (PAP)
• Leader of the Opposition:
  • J. B. Jeyaretnam (WP), until 10 November 1986
  • Chiam See Tong (SDP), from 10 November 1986
• Leader of the House:
  • S. Dhanabalan (PAP), until 24 February 1987
  • Wong Kan Seng (PAP), from 25 February 1987
• Party Whip of the People's Action Party: Lee Yiok Seng
  • Deputy Party Whip of the People's Action Party:
    • Lee Hsien Loong, until 27 January 1987
    • Eugene Yap, from 28 January 1987

Composition

Members

References