By-elections were held in Singapore on 10 February 1979 for seven constituencies, with nominations being accepted on 31 January. With 80,075 registered voters, the 1979 by-elections remain the largest by-election by combined electorate to have ever taken place in post-independence Singapore.

All candidates for the governing People's Action Party (PAP) won their respective by-elections.

Background Continuing the trend of the PAP's renewal just as they did in the 1970 by-elections, six seats, including Communications minister Yong Nyuk Lin, were vacated on 12 January to make room for six new MPs. A seventh seat in Anson was earlier vacated a year prior following the death of Perumal Govindaswamy. As such, the seven seats at stake are widely regarded as the biggest-ever by-election in Singapore's history, and it had the most seats changed since the Barisan Sosialis' mass exodus in the inaugural Parliament back in 1966.

The United People's Front criticized Barisan Sosialis for abstaining the by-elections citing an uphill contest against opposition stalwarts, notably independent Chiam See Tong, who contested in his eventual safe seat of Potong Pasir for the first time in his career (he contested Cairnhill on his debut in 1976). In the end, only Geylang West (which one United Front (now Democratic Progressive Party) candidate was later disqualified) and Nee Soon were uncontested. As of , this by-election was the most recent by-election in Singapore with walkovers.

Candidates The by-election saw the return of Devan Nair into Singapore politics since 1963; his last appearance was in 1955 where he was the only PAP candidate to be defeated in the Farrer Park Constituency, while his wife, Avadai Dhanam Lakshimi, was elected in 1963 under the Moulmein Constituency before retiring one term later in 1968. The following candidates, all from PAP, also marked their debuts:

Candidates BackgroundHowe Yoon ChongHowe, a 56-year-old senior civil servant and developer in the modern-day Singapore, was contesting in Potong Pasir; Howe had earlier planned for its debut in the 1955 election but decided not to do so due to job commitments.Rohan bin KamisRohan bin Kamis, a 30-year-old accountant and law practitioner who was contesting in Telok Blangah.Koh Lip LinKoh, a 44-year-old chemist and a dean of the College of Science of Nanyang University, joined PAP a year prior to the by-election. Koh is contesting Nee Soon.Tony TanTan, a 39-year-old general manager in OCBC Bank and a former lecturer of the Department of Mathematics at NUS, marked its debut in the by-election contesting Sembawang. Tan, besides Devan Nair, would later become future presidents when Tan won the 2011 presidential election.Teh Cheang WanTeh, a 51-year-old architect who is also both the chief executive officer of Housing and Development Board (HDB) and Chair of Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), made his debut contesting Geylang West. Teh resigned from both posts prior to the by-election.Eugene Yap Giau ChengYap, a 36-year-old chief chemist of Fraser and Neave, marked his electoral debut contesting in Mountbatten.

Results

References

Results of 1979 By election