2001 Singaporean general election
2001 parliamentary general election in Singapore
General elections were held in Singapore on 3 November 2001 to elect members of Parliament. They were the eleventh general elections since the introduction of self-government in 1959 and the ninth since independence in 1965. The number of parliamentary seats increased from 83 to 84 following adjustments to electoral boundaries. With 55 seats won uncontested by the People's Action Party (PAP) on nomination day, the outcome of the elections was effectively determined before polling day for the third consecutive election.
The ruling PAP secured a landslide victory and retained its supermajority by winning all but two of the 84 parliamentary seats, while also increasing its popular vote share for the second consecutive election to 75.29%, its strongest showing since the 1980 election. The only opposition candidates elected were Chiam See Tong of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), who retained his seat in Potong Pasir SMC, and Low Thia Khiang of the Workers' Party (WP), who retained his seat in Hougang SMC. As the opposition secured two elected seats, one Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) seat was offered to Steve Chia of the SDA in Chua Chu Kang SMC, who was the best-performing losing opposition candidate. He accepted the seat.
This was Goh Chok Tong's last election as prime minister before he handed over to deputy prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, who is the son of Lee Kuan Yew, in 2004. Voter turnout in contested constituencies stood at 94.61%, slightly lower from the preceding general election. This election was the first in which the total eligible voter population exceeded 2 million, although only one third of them (675,306 of the 2,036,923 eligible voters) were able to vote due to the large number of walkovers.
“2001 Singaporean general election” enters the record as 2001 parliamentary general election in Singapore. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Singaporean, general and election can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7523302. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2001, 1959, 1965 and 1980.
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