Chee Soon Juan (born 20 July 1962) is a Singaporean politician, activist, and former lecturer who has been the secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) since 1993.
Prior to entering politics in 1992, Chee was a lecturer at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was invited by Chiam See Tong to join the SDP, and was a member of the SDP's team that stood in the 1992 Marine Parade by-election. Chee subsequently succeeded Chiam as the party's secretary-general after Chiam, whom Chee and the rest of the party's leadership have had a number of disagreements with, left the party. The party had three Members of Parliament (MPs) when Chee took over as secretary-general, but lost all its seats at the 1997 general election and has not had any elected members since.
Chee has been arrested and jailed several times for his political activities, mainly for making unauthorised public speeches as well as staging demonstrations without a police permit. He has also deemed liable for defamation on multiple occasions for comments he has made about members of the country's governing People's Action Party (PAP). He was previously barred from standing in parliamentary elections because he was declared bankrupt in 2006, after failing to pay damages from a lawsuit owed to Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.
On 24 September 2012, Chee announced that he had raised the reduced sum of $30,000 which was accepted by Lee and Goh to annul his bankruptcy, which has since enabled him to contest in subsequent general elections from 2015. However, as a perennial candidate, he has never won an election since he first contested in 1992.
Early life and education Chee attended Anglo-Chinese School and National Junior College before graduating from Mansfield University with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology.
In 1990, he went on to complete a PhD at the University of Georgia. Upon graduation, Chee returned to Singapore to take up a teaching position in the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore.
Political career In 1992, Chee was recruited to join the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) by the party's founder and secretary-general, Chiam See Tong. Chee was first introduced to the public as a member of the SDP's team to stand in the 1992 Marine Parade by-election in the Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC). His candidacy attracted considerable public interest as it was the first time that an academic from a state-run university had stood against the governing People's Action Party in an election.The case of opposition leader Dr Chee Soon Juan , robertamsterdam.com, 3 November 2009 The SDP team was unsuccessful in the election, with the PAP winning 72.94% of the votes, the SDP 24.50%, and other parties 2.56%.
Shortly after the Marine Parade by-election, Chee became the SDP's assistant secretary-general.
Hunger strike In 1993, a few months after Chee joined the SDP, he was dismissed from NUS by the Head of the Psychology Department, S. Vasoo, who was also a PAP MP at the time, for allegedly using research funds to send his wife's doctoral thesis to the United States and making false transport claims. Chee denied that he had misused university funds and claimed that he was the victim of a political vendetta. On 5 April, he staged a hunger strike to protest his firing. On the second day of his hunger strike, Chee was advised to consume glucose water instead of plain water by a doctor who was checking on his health daily; he accepted the advice. He ended the strike on the tenth day, 14 April.
Although Chiam initially backed Chee, he became critical of Chee's hunger strike and his public comments condemning the PAP for his dismissal from NUS. Chiam wanted to censure Chee for his comments, but the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC) backed Chee. Chiam then resigned as secretary-general of the party. Chee, as the assistant secretary-general, then became the party's acting secretary-general and was subsequently elected as secretary-general in 1993.
After Chiam publicly criticised the CEC, they attempted to expel him from the party—an act which would have forced him to vacate his seat in Parliament—but Chiam won a court case to prevent them from doing so on procedural grounds. Chiam remained an SDP member and MP until shortly before the 1997 general election, when he left to join the Singapore People's Party (SPP), a party founded in 1994 by ex-SDP members who supported him.
Leadership of the Singapore Democratic Party After taking over as the SDP's secretary-general, Chee began regularly travelling abroad and to talk about his views on how "democracy is limited" in Singapore to foreign media, especially in Western countries. He also published his second political book, Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore. In 1994, in response to criticisms of the book made by then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Chee wrote a letter to The Straits Times. The PAP's Second Organising Secretary, Matthias Yao, then wrote to the newspaper to reply to Chee's comments. This led to a two-month-long exchange of letters between Chee and Yao in the newspaper that ended with Chee issuing a challenge to Yao to stand against him in a single member constituency at the next general election. At Yao's request, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong agreed to separate Yao's MacPherson ward from the rest of Marine Parade GRC at the next general election so that he could take up Chee's challenge. At the 1997 general election Chee lost the election, garnering only 34.86% of the vote to Yao's 65.14%.1997 Parliamentary General Election Results , elections.gov.sg
The SDP's first general election under Chee's leadership in 1997 proved to be a major setback for the party as they failed to win any seats in Parliament. Ling How Doong and Cheo Chai Chen were defeated in their bids to be re-elected as MPs.
Defamation suits and bankruptcy At the 2001 general election, Chee stood as one of the SDP's candidates in the Jurong Group Representation Constituency. The SDP's team lost to the PAP team, winning only 20.25% of the votes while the PAP won 79.75%. The SDP's candidates were also unsuccessful in all the other constituencies in which they stood.
During the run-up to the election, Chee attracted attention in the media when he encountered Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong while campaigning at a hawker centre. He used a megaphone to ask the Prime Minister, "Where is the $18 billion that you have lent to [Indonesian President] Suharto?" The PAP took Chee to task for this, claiming that any accusation that Parliament had been misled about an alleged loan to Suharto was untrue, and demanding that he either apologise or face a defamation lawsuit. Although Chee apologised a day later, he subsequently retracted his apology.
After the election, Chee was sued for defamation by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Chee lost the lawsuits and was ordered to pay damages of $300,000 to Goh and $200,000 to Lee.
On 10 February 2006, Chee was declared bankrupt by the High Court after failing to pay the damages owed to Goh and Lee. As an undischarged bankrupt, Chee became ineligible to stand in general elections and was required to seek a court-appointed Official Assignee's permission before making any trips abroad. By Farah Abdul Rahim. In April, Chee was stopped at Changi Airport as he was preparing to board a flight to Istanbul as he had not obtained his Official Assignee's approval.
At the 2011 general election, Chee led the SDP into the contest. Although he was barred from standing due to his undischarged bankruptcy, he assembled a team of individuals to stand as candidates. The party had envisioned its best team to stand in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC. Its candidates included Tan Jee Say, Ang Yong Guan, Vincent Wijeysingha, and Michelle Lee Juen. The team lost, attaining 39.92% of the vote.
On 11 September 2012, both Lee and Goh said they had no objection to accepting Chee's offer to pay the reduced sum of $30,000 to annul his bankruptcy. On 24 September, Chee announced that he had raised the $30,000 from the sale of his latest book, Democratically Speaking, and would be making payment to the Official Assignee in the course of that week. On 23 November, Chee was formally cleared of bankruptcy upon being issued a Certificate of Annulment by the Official Assignee. This allowed him to travel freely outside of Singapore, as well as stand in future General Elections.
Contesting elections Chee contested as a candidate of Singapore Democratic Party along with Paul Tambyah, Sidek Mallek, and Chong Wai Fung for the Holland-Bukit Timah GRC in the 2015 general elections. He began his campaign by raising the issue of the high cost of living in Singapore, stressing that there was a need for Singaporeans to have an alternative voice in Parliament. In subsequent election rallies, Chee unveiled the SDP's proposals, which included the raising of personal income taxes on the top 1% of taxpayers to the year-2000 level, the introduction of a minimum wage, as well as the creation of a national healthcare plan to be funded by cutting the defence budget by 40%. In response, the PAP team described the proposals as "unrealistic", saying that the SDP's policies involved "tax-and-spend" programmes that would set Singapore "on the road to (debt-stricken) Greece". Chee responded by saying the PAP had previously criticised the SDP's ideas, only to adopt them later. According to Chee, the SDP had in the past proposed pooling individual healthcare risks, an idea that has been adopted by the Government, through the implementation of the MediShield Life universal healthcare insurance scheme, as well as the Government's Fair Consideration Framework, which he stated was an adoption of the SDP's proposal that employers must try hiring Singaporeans first before considering foreigners.
At a PAP rally on 7 September 2015, Vivian Balakrishnan also called to attention Chee's role in ousting Chiam as secretary-general of SDP in 1993, saying that the PAP "did not have a tradition of 'backstabbing' its mentors". In response, Chee, as well as the SDP's Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC candidate Bryan Lim, provided an account of the incidents that led to Chiam's resignation on the party's website, saying that Chiam resigned on his own accord. Lina Chiam, Chiam's wife and the chairperson of SPP, confirmed that the two sides had held "friendly talk" on the issue. At the same PAP rally, Sim Ann accused Chee of being adept at "chut pattern", a Singlish phrase meaning being full of antics. Chee responded the following day at a SDP rally by stating that he would not respond to personal attacks and would stay focused on policy issues during the election season, saying, "If you attack, you attack the policy, not the person... In football terms, you play the ball, not the man." Chee also addressed the different target population figures cited by government officials in the past, including the much debated 6.9 million figure in the Population White Paper, asking if the PAP would consider the SDP's proposal to base the optimal population on the happiness of residents, and a point system when bringing in foreigners for skilled jobs.