Resignations of minority MPs shine spotlight on flaws of GRC system: Academic asserts

SINGAPORE: The resignation of former Acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Professor Faishal Ibrahim has reignited debate over Singapore’s Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system, with academic Walid J Abdullah arguing that the latest episode has highlighted longstanding weaknesses in the country’s electoral model.

In a Facebook post, Prof Walid said discussions following Prof Faishal’s resignation had once again centred on whether a by-election should be held when the minority Member of Parliament in a GRC resigns or is removed from office.

“After all, the GRC was created for minority representation,” he wrote.

However, he noted that the legal position on the issue has already been settled.

“This issue has been settled in court,” he said, referring to the case involving former Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob, who resigned from Parliament before contesting the Presidential Election.

Prof Walid noted that the Court of Appeal had ruled that “a by-election was not necessary if only one person stepped down, even if it was the minority MP”.

He added that similar situations had arisen since then, pointing to the departures of S. Iswaran, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and former Workers’ Party MP Raeesah Khan, none of which resulted in by-elections.

Prof Walid also made clear that he was not advocating for a by-election in the wake of Prof Faishal’s resignation.

“Personally, I did not call for a by-election in Sengkang in 2021, and therefore will not call for one this time too,” he wrote.

Instead, he argued that the debate should focus on the structure of the GRC system itself rather than whether by-elections should be triggered in individual cases.

“The issue for me is not whether a by-election should be called, but rather, the GRC system itself,” he wrote. “The system has many flaws (alongside its benefits) and incidents like this simply magnifies its shortcomings.”

Prof Walid proposed substantially reducing the size of GRCs, saying the modest changes introduced ahead of the 2025 General Election did not go far enough.

“For me, what we should move towards is much smaller GRCs: not an average reduction in size by 0.09 as was the case in 2025, but a significant shrinking,” he said.

He suggested that two-member GRCs would be sufficient to preserve minority representation, while the remaining constituencies could become Single Member Constituencies (SMCs).

“If minority representation is the goal of GRCs, all we need are 2-person GRCs, and the rest of the seats could be Single Member Constituencies,” he wrote.

Under such a system, Prof Walid argued, “by-elections become absolutely necessary… if anything happens to the MPs in either SMCs or GRCs”.

He said this would both preserve minority representation and improve electoral competition while ensuring that voters’ decisions are better respected.

“That way, not only would the electoral scene be more competitive while retaining minority representation, but voters’ choices would also be respected,” he wrote.

Prof Walid also pointed to the evolution of the GRC system over the years, noting that it had originally begun with three-member teams before expanding to as many as six MPs.

“The GRC started from three-person teams and morphed into six at one point in time,” he wrote, “There is no reason why we should not get it down back to 3 at the very least, and hopefully, even 2.”

Read his post in full HERE.