Chee Soon Juan

Chee Soon Juan (born 20 July 1962) is a Singaporean politician, activist, and former lecturer who has been appointed as Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party since 1993.

He subsequently went on to complete a PhD at the University of Georgia in 1990.

Upon graduation, Chee returned to Singapore to take up a teaching position in the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore.

Prior to entering politics in 1992, upon Chiam See Tong's invitation to join the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), Chee was a lecturer at the National University of Singapore.

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, left the party.

However, Chee has been considered to be a perennial candidate, and has never won an election ever since he first contested in 1992.

Chee attended Anglo-Chinese School and National Junior College before graduating from Mansfield University with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology.

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 a by-election in the Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency in 1992.

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.

However, 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.

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.

He staged a five-day hunger strike to protest his sacking.

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.

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.

Chee lost the election, gandering only 34.86% of the vote to Yao's 65.14%.

The party had three Members of Parliament (MPs) at the time 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 was arrested and jailed several times for his unconventional political activities, mainly for making unauthorised public speeches as well as staging demonstrations without a police permit.

He was also found guilty of defamation on multiple occasions for comments he has made about members of the country's governing People's Action Party (PAP).

Chiam remained an SDP member and MP until shortly before the 1997 general election, when he left to join the Singapore People's Party, a party founded in 1994 by ex-SDP members who supported him.

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 the foreign media, especially in the Western countries.

He also published his second political book, Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore.

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, while Chee lost the high-profile contest in MacPherson to Matthias Yao by 6,713 (34.86%) votes to 12,546 (65.14%).

Meanwhile, Chiam See Tong was re-elected as the MP for Potong Pasir, representing his new party.

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 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 enabled him to contest in the 2015 and 2020 general elections.