General elections were held in Singapore on 3 November 2001. President S.R. Nathan dissolved parliament on 18 October 2001 on the advice of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) won 82 of the 84 elected seats in Parliament in a landslide victory. Due to the large number (55) of uncontested seats, only 675,306 of the 2,036,923 eligible voters (33%) had an opportunity to vote. As of the recent election in 2020, this was the most recent, and fourth overall (third consecutive) election PAP returned to power on nomination day with a majority of uncontested walkovers.

Quick Facts All 84 directly elected seats in Parliament (and up to 3 NCMPs), Registered ...

2001 Singaporean general election

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All 84 directly elected seats in Parliament (and up to 3 NCMPs)
Registered	2,036,923[lower-alpha 1]
Turnout	94.61% ( 1.30pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Goh Chok Tong Chiam See Tong Low Thia Khiang Party PAP SDA WP Last election 64.98%, 81 seats – 14.17%, 2 seats Seats won 82 2 1 Seat change 1 New 1 Popular vote 470,765 75,248 19,060 Percentage 75.29% 12.03% 3.05% Swing 10.31pp New 11.12pp
Results by constituency
Prime Minister before election Goh Chok Tong PAP Prime Minister after election Goh Chok Tong PAP

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This election marked the first time that total eligible voter population exceeded the 2 million mark.

The ruling PAP's secretary-general and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong initially scheduled for the election to be held in 2002, but pushed to November after Singapore faced an economic crisis due to the events of September 11 attacks in the United States.

For the first time since 1963, a formal political umbrella emerged from within the opposition. The four-party Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA), which consist of the leader party Singapore People's Party (SPP), the National Solidarity Party (NSP), Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Singapura (PKMS) and Singapore Justice Party (SJP), was led by Chiam See Tong. SDA fielded the most candidates in the election, where NSP provided the bulk of nine candidates, SPP with four, and PKMS providing a required minority candidate.

Former Workers' Party (WP) Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, who lost his seat after being declared a bankrupt owing to lawsuits by PAP leaders, resigned from the party, citing disagreements with the present leadership. The only WP Member of Parliament, Low Thia Khiang took over as secretary-general. During nomination day, WP was nominated on only two wards (Hougang and Nee Soon East SMC), as their sole GRC team who attempt to nominate in Aljunied Group Representation Constituency was disqualified for filing incomplete papers.

A seat had been vacated in 1999 after the conviction of Jalan Besar GRC's MP Choo Wee Khiang over commercial crimes, but no by-election was held as the seat was within a GRC. Under the law, an entire electoral constituency (for both single member and GRC seats) has to be vacated before a by-election could be called, as this was done during the Marine Parade GRC by-election of 1992.

There were a total of 40 (25 PAP) candidates making their political debut in the 2001 election. Notable figures were Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Halimah Yacob, both of which would later go on to become Presidents of Singapore. 24 incumbent MPs retired prior to the announcements. 15 candidates outside PAP were also new, among which new faces include Chee Siok Chin, sister of the SDP's leader Chee Soon Juan, as well as Desmond Lim, who would later lead the newly formed SDA in future years, and a future Perennial candidate Ooi Boon Ewe.

PAP won a landslide victory and its best result since 1980. The party achieved its third highest score among the general elections it has contested since 1959. The PAP's vote percentage of 75.3% signalled an overwhelming endorsement of the PAP to lead the nation out of the crisis that came at a time of great uncertainty over world security and the recession that came after the September 11 attacks.

Two candidates, Tan Kim Chuang and Tan Lead Shake, had each forfeited their $9,000 election deposit, the latter being a straight contest where Tan Cheng Bock won the best performing election result at 87.96% in Ayer Rajah Constituency; This is the last election to date where there was a forfeiture of election deposit outside multi-cornered contests.