Six new Progress Singapore Party (PSP) candidates were introduced today, their fourth and final batch.

Tan Cheng Bock, secretary general of the PSP, introduced the five candidates over Zoom, as he did with the previous batches.

Six new candidates

The candidates, who were introduced by PSP Secretary-General Tan Cheng Bock, are:

1. Leong Mun Wai, 60, the assistant secretary-general of PSP, and a former Public Service Commission (PSC) scholar, Managing Director of OCBC Securities, Director of Merrill Lynch HK and Investment officer of GIC.

2. Terence Soon, 29, a pilot at Singapore Airlines, previously running his own business in the private aviation industry.

3. Abdul Rahman, 67, formerly working with the Singapore Fire Brigade in 1975, and now a Fellow with the Institution of Fire Engineers UK. He is currently working as a Consulting Engineer specialising in Fire and Life Safety audit and design with Parsons International.

4. Kala Manickam, 52, a former Platoon Commander of the Women Wing in Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), later switching to the private sector, holding 30 years of working experience in Human Resource Management and Learning Development.

5. Jeffrey Khoo Poh Tiong, 51, the Chief Marketing Officer, APAC for an MNC in the insurance sector, and serves at The National University of Singapore Society (NUSS) as their Honorary Treasurer.

6. Lim Cher Hong, 42, an author and Chartered Financial Consultant. He was a Programme Coordinator cum Trainer for the Silver Generation Office (SGO).

More on the candidates

1. Leong Mun Wai

A former PSC scholar, Leong was previously the Managing Director of OCBC Securities, Director at Merrill Lynch HK and an Investment Officer at GIC. He graduated from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo with a bachelor's degree in Economics on a PSC Overseas Merit Scholarship.

He later attained a Master's Degree in Management in 1992, under the Sloan Fellowship Program of London Business School.

Leong shared that he grew up in poverty, raised by his father, who was a hawker in Chinatown.

However, his parents wanted Leong to focus on his education, pushing him to excel in his studies.

He is married with three grown children, the youngest who is a doctor and a frontline worker in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Leong is the assistant secretary-general of the PSP.

"We think our society and economy has been heading in the wrong direction for a while. Compassion is fast diminishing," Leong shared, speaking about his reason for standing in the coming election.

"I have no grudge against the establishment. Many of the past and present ministers are my schoolmates or classmates.

But I just want to point out the issues to get to them, just in case they might have missed out something," Leong said.

2. Terence Soon

Soon is currently working as a pilot at Singapore Airlines. Before joining SIA, he was running his own business in the private aviation industry.

He shared that he did not do well for his 'A'-levels, and had to retake them as a result. Later, he started his own business while he was in university.

At the age of 23, Soon travelled to the U.S. to expand his business network, enduring many challenges of his own.

Tan shared that Soon spent three hours travelling to and fro just to buy groceries as he was living in a place without proper public transport set up, and did not have enough money to buy a car.

Soon is currently married with a newborn child, and shared that he realised his calling for politics after his wife got pregnant.

"I hope that the kind of work that we do here in PSP, we can inspire more young Singaporeans, and be able to step up with courage and do what is right for the country."

3. Abdul Rahman

Abdul is currently working as a Consulting Engineer specialising in Fire and Life Safety audit and design with Parsons International.

He started with the Singapore Fire Brigade in 1975, and later became a Fellow with the Institution of Fire Engineers UK.

Sharing that he had seen many examples of governance while he was working overseas, he said that many governments emphasise on education, training, and local enterprises.

With that, he said that he was determined to return to Singapore to call for full emphasis on this in policies enacted by the government.

He shared that he wanted to call for a transparent and open review on the efficiency of the funding models by agencies such as Mendaki, and also call to narrow the income gap in Singapore.

4. Kala Manickam

Kala was part of the first batch of female officers in the SAF integrated in Tri service, training side-by-side with men.

She served in the SAF for seven years, fulfilling her contractual obligations before switching to the private sector.

She also worked in the healthcare industry at SGH and NHC where she worked for six years in the Nursing, Learning & Development Department, managing and crafting nurses' career path progression.

5. Jeffrey Khoo Poh Tiong

Khoo is the Chief Marketing Officer in Asia Pacific for an MNC in the insurance sector.

Graduating from NUS, he is deeply involved in NUSS as an Honorary Treasurer and the founder of the NUSS Mentorship Programme.

Due to his expertise in botany, he periodically speaks at regional and global conferences on the subject of agriculture insurance.

6. Lim Cher Hong

Lim is an author and a chartered financial consultant, and was a Programme Coordinator with the Silver Generation Office (SGO) before he joined PSP.

As the father of three young boys, Lim shared his desire to help support parents, as well as single parents with growing children.

Top image via PSP