After a heated debate in parliament that lasted for close to 2 hours on a Friday evening, East Coast GRC candidate Daniel Goh will be nominated as Workers' Party (WP)'s third Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP).

This was after PAP MPs voted to support the motion to fill the third NCMP seat, after WP MPs have abstained from the vote which included the following amendment:

"but regrets that Ms Lee Li Lian, having stood as a Worker’s Party candidate and received the highest vote share among all losing opposition candidates, has now decided to give up her NCMP seat to another candidate from her party with a lower vote share, contrary to the expressed will of voters, and that the Worker’s Party supports this political manoeuvre to take full advantage of the NCMP seat, even as its secretary-general criticises NCMPs as just ‘duckweed on the water of a pond’."

The National University Sociology professor posted on Facebook early this morning, indicating that he will accept the NCMP seat. Goh said that "the principle of national service trumps the political principle of opposing the NCMP scheme.

Here are the main points of his Facebook post:

1. Low Thia Khiang (WP Sec-Gen) is right: NCMPs are essentially duckweeds. Low was using a Chinese flower metaphor in a way that many of the Anglophones (including Goh) do not understand.

2. Goh said that NCMPs are like pretty flowers that sink no roots, floating about and contradicting the values of harmony and community.

3. He is with the WP MPs and the party opposing the NCMP scheme.

You can read his full Facebook post here:

Related articles:

Chan Chun Sing uses Low’s duckweed statement, supports motion to get Daniel Goh in parliament

Led by Chan Chun Sing, PAP outmanoeuvred WP before letting WP fill up its NCMP seat

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