Beware the NMP scheme becoming a revolving door for aspiring politicians

Jeremy Tan and Darryl Lo's applications put the Nominated Member of Parliament Special Select Committee in a bind.

- Lin Suling

I first met Kanwaljit Soin in 2018 at a gathering of social workers and women's-issues advocates, most of whom were in their 20s and 30s. The discussion naturally gravitated towards motherhood, childcare and other challenges faced by young women.

An hour in, Dr Soin stood up. Why, she asked, had no one spoken about women in their 60s?

These were women caring for grandchildren and ageing parents, living with loneliness, chronic illness, and the constant anxiety of retirement adequacy.

That's Dr Soin, never afraid to shine an uncomfortable light on the overlooked corners of society. A founding member of Aware, she has long galvanised Singapore's civil society to put women's issues on the national agenda and confront the toughest challenges facing those left behind.

While her fierce advocacy often catches attention, her lasting legacy remains her tenure as a Nominated MP (NMP) from 1992 to 1996, where she used her platform to push through tangible change.

The 1995 private member's Bill on family violence she introduced would later see many of its core tenets written into the Women's Charter in 1996.

More than 30 years on, ideas in that methodically assembled Bill continue to reverberate. When Parliament expanded the definition of family violence in 2023 to include coercive control and allowed emergency orders for high-risk cases, it was building on foundations Dr Soin had laid and drew directly from her proposals.

She remains, to many, the archetype of what an NMP should be - someone with transformative ideas to shape society and capable of bringing about constructive change, through thought leadership, legislative work and a concrete agenda grounded in grassroots activism.

But the NMP scheme that once featured figures like Dr Soin now faces an awkward test.