Leon Perera, Nicole Seah resign from Workers' Party over extramarital affair

SINGAPORE: Workers' Party (WP) senior members Leon Perera and Nicole Seah have resigned from the opposition party after having an extramarital affair, secretary-general Pritam Singh announced on Wednesday (Jul 19).

He also said that Mr Perera has informed the acting Speaker of Parliament that he will be resigning as a Member of Parliament (MP).

Both had lied in early 2021 that they were not having an affair when party leadership asked them about the allegations, which Mr Perera's personal driver brought up to several other WP senior members - including Mr Singh.

The affair started after the 2020 General Election but "stopped some time ago", added Mr Singh at a press conference, where selected members of the media were invited.

"Leon's conduct and not being truthful when asked by the party leadership about the allegations fell short of the standards expected of Workers' Party MPs. This is unacceptable," Mr Singh said.

This comes two days after a video clip apparently showing the pair surfaced on Facebook, prompting the party to say that it was looking into an "inappropriate exchange between two senior Party members".

It added then that the party "expects all its members to fully own and account for their behaviour".

The silent 15-second clip appeared to show Mr Perera – an MP for Aljunied – dining with 2020 General Election candidate Ms Seah while holding and stroking her hands.

It is not known when or where the video was shot. It was first posted by Facebook user "Victoria Wang" and as of Tuesday evening, the video and the account were no longer available.

AFFAIR ALLEGATIONS

Mr Singh said they saw the video for the first time on Monday. 

Prior to this, the party leader was approached by Mr Perera's personal driver in sometime around late 2020 and early 2021. The driver said in a WhatsApp message that Mr Perera and Ms Seah were meeting "very often" at restaurants and hotels, and that they were seen hugging and holding hands.

Mr Singh said on Wednesday that there was no evidence or corroborating information at that time to support the allegation. He did not know Mr Perera's driver personally either.

He then asked Mr Perera about the allegations. Mr Perera refuted the claims. 

"Leon also shared with me that he was in an ongoing dispute with his driver and was about to terminate his services and had sought legal advice on the allegations of his driver," Mr Singh said.

"Over the course of the next few months, Leon's driver also shared substantively the same information with other members of the party."

These members – Ms Sylvia Lim, Mr Gerald Giam, Mr Dennis Tan and Mr Jamus Lim – have been named in several media reports. 

Ms Lim is the party chairman while Mr Tan is WP's organising secretary. Mr Giam is WP's head of policy research, and Mr Lim is deputy head of policy research.

Mr Singh added: "When they received these messages from Leon's driver, all of them sought to verify these allegations with Leon. Leon told them that there was no truth to these allegations."

Several members of the central executive committee (CEC) also separately approached Ms Seah about the allegations, which she also refuted.

"When the video of Nicole and Leon emerged on Monday, that was the first time all of us saw it," said Mr Singh. 

He said that he immediately arranged to meet with the pair on Monday afternoon, which was when both admitted that they had an affair. This started after the 2020 General Election but “stopped some time ago”.

“When I met Leon on the afternoon of Jul 17, he acknowledged that he should have been more forthcoming when I and other party members first approached him about the allegations made by his driver,” Mr Singh said.

WP’s CEC then met that evening to discuss the matter and come to a decision. The following day, Mr Singh received Ms Seah’s letter of resignation from the party.

Mr Singh also received Mr Perera’s resignation letter effective Wednesday.

“He has informed the acting Speaker of Parliament (Jessica Tan) that he was resigning his seat in parliament,” Mr Singh added.

The WP chief told reporters that the party’s Constitution requires candidates to be honest and frank in their dealings with the party and the people of Singapore.

“Had he not offered his resignation, I would have recommended to the CEC that he be expelled from the party.”

Mr Singh said that from the moment WP was made aware of the video, it moved "as quickly as (it) could", taking into account that the party needed to be "fair to everyone, get to the bottom of matters and put things right".

He asked that all Singaporeans give Mr Perera and Ms Seah, who are both married, the space to heal and be with their families and loved ones.

Mr Perera, who turns 53 this year, has two children. Ms Seah, 36, had her second child in April last year.

The pair sat on the WP's CEC. Mr Perera headed the media team while Ms Seah was the youth wing president.

Mr Perera first emerged onto Singapore's political scene when he ran as a candidate for East Coast during the 2015 General Election. He subsequently became a Non-Constituency MP, before joining the WP's winning slate for its Aljunied stronghold at the 2020 polls.

Prior to politics, he was a civil servant and later co-founder and chief executive officer of a business research and consulting agency. 

Ms Seah joined the WP in 2015, contesting in East Coast GRC at the 2020 polls, after earlier stints with the Reform Party and National Solidarity Party. She shot to online fame as the youngest female candidate at the 2011 General Election, when she was 24.

Ms Seah was last reported in 2020 to be working at a multinational marketing firm.

In 2012, the WP expelled then-Hougang MP Yaw Shin Leong following rumours of an extramarital affair. The incident resurfaced in 2021 when the party refuted claims by Mr Yaw that he was told to stay silent after the alleged affair.

On Monday, former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin - who had been MP for Marine Parade GRC since 2011 - resigned from parliament and the ruling People's Action Party.

He had been having an affair with fellow PAP MP Cheng Li Hui, who also resigned from the party.

MR PERERA WAS "HIGHLY EFFECTIVE" MP

In response to questions by the media on Wednesday, Mr Singh reiterated that the decision-making process was affected by two critical factors.

These were the lack of corroborative evidence and a single source of information - Mr Perera’s driver whose services were about to be terminated.

“Certainly with corroborative evidence of what was alleged, I’m quite sure the party would have done something different and confronted the members concerned, and perhaps even pursued other channels to corroborate that information,” he said.

When he spoke to Mr Perera and Ms Seah on Monday, they were “disappointed in themselves”. Ms Seah had approached her family “earlier” to speak about the matter.

“She had been resolving the matter earlier, and the process of healing started with her much earlier after the affair.

“I don’t want to go too much into their feelings and their families, but what I would reiterate is that you can imagine - I can imagine - being in their shoes. I think most of us who are married can. It would be a very very difficult time for both of them," said Mr Singh. 

“Family is a crucible of strength for all of us. I want to be careful with what I say. I just want to end off by saying that I hope the families find strength and I pray that they are able to move on with their lives.”

Mr Singh called Mr Perera a “highly effective MP”, adding that WP has lost an important member of its team in parliament.

“He has been excellent on the ground as well, but there are other things that we cannot ignore. Standards that have to be kept and party discipline is incredibly important if you want to be a serious party in advancing the interests of Singapore and Singaporeans,” he added.

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