'' on 1 September An unprecedented four seats were won by the opposition, the biggest number since the
1963 election, and the PAP share of votes fell for the third consecutive time since 1984, down to then lowest share of 60.97%. The SDP clocked in the best performance for an opposition party at 48.56% of the total votes in seats that they contested (a record at the time of the election) and became the main opposition party in Parliament, representing with three seats including the seat of
Potong Pasir SMC by leader Chiam See Tong with a record 69.64% of the votes. The three incumbents who were defeated in the election were one-term MPs, including the first woman acting cabinet minister
Seet Ai Mee, as well as
Ng Pock Too and
Tang Guan Seng; only Tang returned to the 1997 election as a member in
Ang Mo Kio GRC. Including the four elected opposition seats, 12 constituencies saw oppositions secured at least 40% of the vote, eight of which had a margin of less than 5% (including the PAP narrowly winning in
Changi SMC (47.00%),
Nee Soon South SMC (47.24%),
Eunos GRC (47.62%),
Braddell Heights SMC (47.73%) and
Bukit Batok SMC (48.18%)), which highlighted the rising support for alternative parties and reflected a significant shift in public sentiment against the PAP's policies at the time. Despite the "by-election effect", opposition candidates narrowly missed out on winning additional seats beyond their final tally. These close outcomes highlighted the momentum the opposition could build despite the PAP's efforts to maintain a significant advantage, even though it ultimately fell short of securing greater parliamentary representation. The WP made its second in-road into the legislature with the victory of its organising secretary
Low Thia Khiang, who previously contested
Tiong Bahru GRC in the last election and
Hougang SMC on this election, who would years later become WP secretary-general and leader from 2001 to 2018. In a documentary by Low on his
Hougang released in 2024, Low remarked that he had also considered contesting Changi SMC, but chose Hougang to make way for Tan Bin Seng to contest there due to familiarities. Hougang would go on to become the longest-serving opposition
safe seat in Singapore for decades to come even after he left Hougang in
2011. At a post-election press conference on the night of 31 August, Goh attributed the swing against the PAP to his "open and consultative style of government" and pledged to re-evaluate his style. Since the introduction of the Non-Constituency Member of Parliament scheme in 1984, this was the first election (and to date the only as of
2025) no NCMP seats were offered since four elected opposition seats exceeded the minimum of three NCMP seats allotted; this led to the eventual retirement of
Lee Siew Choh in 1993. While both
deputy prime ministers Ong Teng Cheong and
Lee Hsien Loong were undergoing treatment for cancer, Goh called a
by-election in his
own constituency just a year after the general election. He justified the move as a strategic opportunity for "political self-renewal", aiming to attract individuals of "ministerial calibre" to join the PAP government. The by-election also coincided with the expiry of opposition politician
J. B. Jeyaretnam's political ban, creating a potential opening for his return to electoral politics. ==Notes==