Workers' Party is rumoured to have also successfully recruited Tan Jee Say

Mr Tan Jee Say was formerly a high-flying civil servant, serving as then-DPM Goh Chok Tong's Principal Private Secretary from 1985-1990After already unveiling one ‘star catch’ in top corporate lawyer Chen Show Mao, the opposition Workers’ Party is rumoured to have also successfully recruited Tan Jee Say, a former senior civil servant, to run as a candidate in the upcoming General Election. It is thought that the WP will field Mr Tan in Joo Chiat, where he lives.

Mr Tan studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and served in the elite Administrative Service before leaving to join Morgan Grenfell Asia in 1990. He was the Principal Private Secretary to then-Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong from 1985 to 1990.

If he is indeed fielded as a WP candidate, he will become the latest ‘heavyweight’ candidate to join the opposition ranks, following Mr Chen – a Rhodes scholar – and other former scholarship holders such as Benjamin Pwee, Tony Tan Lay Thiam and Hazel Poa.

Mr Tan is now a private investor and has been active in the civil society scene, publishing a 45-page paper titled ‘Creating Jobs and Enterprise in a New Singapore Economy – Ideas for Change’, which he presented at a public forum to debate the Budget earlier this year.

Mr Tan neither confirmed nor denied the rumours, merely saying that it was “not outside the realm of possibilities”, but for the time being, brushed them off as mere “speculation”.