A by-election was held on 29 June 1957, with nomination day occurring on 18 May 1957 in Cairnhill and Tanjong Pagar. When talks with the British authorities for self-governance broke down, Chief Minister David Marshall decided to resign from the Labour Front on 7 June 1956. He had also challenged then-opposition leader

Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...

from the

People's Action Party The People's Action Party (abbreviation: PAP) is a major conservative centre-right political party in Singapore and is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in Parliament, alongside the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and ...

to resign and recontest his Tanjong Pagar ward as well, which he did. The Labour Front's replacement candidate Keng Bang Ee lost the seat to the new

Liberal Socialist Party The Liberal Socialist Party ( abbreviation: LSP) was a political party in the Singapore. It was formed in the 1950s from the merger of the Singapore Progressive Party (SPP) and the Democratic Party (DP), the latter not to be confused with the ...

, while Lee retained his seat in Tanjong Pagar. This election had a voter turnout of merely 43.55%, the lowest of any election in the period between 1948 and 1959. With the introduction of compulsory voting in

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

, this turnout remains the lowest for any election in Singapore's history.

Election Deposit

The election deposit was stated at $500.

Results

Cairnhill

Note 1: As Mirza Abdul Majid had failed to secure 12.5% of the votes, he had his election deposit forfeited. Note 2: In 1957, Singapore Malay Union (SMU) was expelled by its alliance partners consisted of

UMNO The United Malays National Organisation ( Malay: ; Jawi: ; abbreviated UMNO () or less commonly PEKEMBAR), is a nationalist right-wing political party in Malaysia. As the oldest continuous national political party within Malaysia (since its ...

and MCA for fielding a candidate in this by-election which was the reason for the elections department of Singapore to view Tengku Muda as another independent candidate.

Tanjong Pagar

References

Background of Singaporean 1957 By election
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singaporean By-Election, 1957

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year ...

1957 elections in Asia June 1957 events in Asia 1957 in Singapore