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| Registered | 14,512 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 13,746 (94.72%)  0.38% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A by-election was held in Anson Constituency, Singapore on 31 October 1981. The by-election was to replace the vacant seat after the incumbent PAP MP, Devan Nair, stood down in order to become President of Singapore.
The result was a victory for J. B. Jeyaretnam from the Workers' Party, winning 51.93% of the vote.
The by-election marked the first occasion since Singapore's independence in which a PAP candidate was defeated in an election for a seat in Parliament.[1][2] The 37% swing against the PAP is the largest ever swing in a by-election in independent Singapore, and the second largest since 1961.
- ^ Singapore Party Loses Vote, New York Times, 1 November 1981.
- ^ I'll start work right away says Jeya Archived 29 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine, New Nation, 2 November 1981.