The first two NMPs appointed with effect from 22 November 1990 were
cardiologist Professor Maurice Choo and company executive Leong Chee Whye. As of December 2010, one NMP – Professor
Walter Woon Cheong Ming, a law lecturer at the
National University of Singapore – had succeeded in having a
public law enacted based on a
private member's bill he or she had initiated. The law in question is the Maintenance of Parents Act, which entitles parents at least 60 years old and unable to maintain themselves adequately to apply to a tribunal for their children to be ordered to pay maintenance to them. The bill was introduced in Parliament by Woon on 23 May 1994, and eventually passed on 2 November 1995. In that year, the first woman NMP, Dr.
Kanwaljit Soin, also introduced a Family Violence Bill but it did not pass. Following his term as an NMP,
Gerard Ee, a
Roman Catholic, was invited in November 2002 to join a team of seven parliamentarians of different faiths tasked to refine the
Declaration of Religious Harmony, which was presented as the product of interfaith dialogue and understanding. This is an example of how NMPs have influenced
soft law and the
legal culture in Singapore. In 2009, the arts community became the first group among the functional groups that NMPs are meant to represent to undertake an open election process to pick the candidates of their choice. It choose Audrey Wong and
Loretta Chen, and submitted their names to the authorities. Audrey Wong was selected to become the first "Arts" NMP, and served from 2009 to 2011. In 2011, the arts community underwent the same process and elected
Janice Koh as its candidate. She was appointed an NMP in 2012. On 25 May 2009 during a debate in Parliament, Siew Kum Hong called for a hybrid Parliament in which a limited number of seats would be allocated by way of
proportional representation, while the majority would still be filled the way they are now. He felt this would allow for more diverse views in Parliament, adding that it would be "more consistent with democratic principles than a scheme like the Nominated MP scheme". Siew also noted that while the act of voting was key to democracy and political participation, a large number of Singaporeans do not get to vote at each election because walkovers are prevalent. NMPs are supposed to be non-partisan but after it had been announced on 7 July 2009 that
Calvin Cheng would be one of the nine people nominated to be NMPs it was disclosed by
Today newspaper that he was a member of
Young PAP, the youth wing of the PAP. The following day, Cheng wrote to the newspaper stating that he had formally resigned from Young PAP on 8 July, and that in any case he had been an inactive member, having never collected his membership card or attended any PAP branch activities. This led to a journalist commenting that his attitude had been "cavalier" and "whimsical", and a Young PAP member writing on the Forum page of
The Straits Times that his remarks had raised doubts about the Young PAP's credibility. The Constitution does not explicitly bar NMPs from being members of political parties, and Gerard Ee was also a PAP member when he was an NMP. He did not feel he had to resign, as since he was not subject to the party whip he would not be prevented from expressing independent views in Parliament. Despite these initial criticisms,
The Straits Times reported that Cheng "left the strongest impression on many elected Members of Parliament", following speeches he made during his maiden budget debate in Parliament in 2010. In his final speech during Budget 2011 before Parliament was dissolved for the
general election that year, Cheng argued for the Government to educate the Internet generation instead of regulating the Internet to deal with threats such as "misinformation and disinformation", calling it "pointless". He went on to say that the Internet might be a "wild card" during the general election. display at the
National Museum of Singapore featuring a portion of the
Singapore National Pledge. When reciting it,
Singapore citizens pledge themselves "as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion". On 18 August 2009,
Viswa Sadasivan moved a motion for Parliament to reaffirm "its commitment to the nation building tenets as enshrined in the
National Pledge when debating national policies, especially economic policies". He identified one of the tenets of the Pledge as the need to strive to become a "united people, regardless of race, language or religion", and expressed the view that Singaporean society needed to address "apparent contradictions and mixed signals" by unnecessarily emphasising racial differences. He gave examples where this had occurred: the existence of ethnic based self-help groups,
Special Assistance Plan schools and
cultural elitism; policies concerning Malay-Muslims in the
Singapore Armed Forces and maintaining the current racial distribution in the population; and discussions about whether Singapore was ready for an ethnic minority Prime Minister. The next day,
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew refuted what he termed Viswa's "false and flawed" arguments, saying he wanted to "bring the House back to earth" on the issue of racial equality in Singapore. He noted that Articles 152 and 153 of the Constitution, which make it the Government's responsibility to care for racial and religious minorities and to recognise the special position of Malays as the indigenous people of Singapore, explicitly impose a duty on the Government not to treat everyone equally. He felt that the tenet in the Pledge that Viswa had referred to was only an aspiration: "It is not reality, it is not practical, it will lead to grave and irreparable damage if we work on that principle. ... [W]e are trying to reach a position where there is a level playing field for everybody which is going to take decades, if not centuries, and we may never get there." Thus, it was not feasible to dismantle institutions that provided assistance to Singaporeans on an ethnic basis. It was the first time since 2007 that Lee had chosen to speak during a debate in Parliament.
NMPs turning partisan In 2025, two NMPs, Raj Joshua Thomas and
Syed Harun Alhabsyi both resigned on 14 February. Their resignations were the first for any NMPs since it was introduced. This led to former NMPs raising concerns that the NMP scheme should not be another talent hunting ground for political parties and in preserving the non-partisan intent of the scheme, NMPs should finish their NMP term before joining any political parties. As of April, Thomas had joined the PAP while Syed Harun did not confirm he had joined the PAP. On 3 May, Syed Harun was elected as an MP representing
Nee Soon GRC as part of the PAP. ==Notes==