| Established by former Chief Minister and LF leader David Marshall, it had in the beginning a requirement that trade unionists had to be adequately represented within its leadership, although this was later phased out. On 19 January 1963, Marshall resigned and the party dwindled into a handful of members until July 1971 when a group led by J. B. Jeyaretnam revived it. Ten years later, Jeyaretnam ended PAP's monopoly in a by-election to become the first elected opposition Member of Parliament in 15 years. He was secretary-general until 27 May 2001 and left WP on 22 October 2001 owing to differences with the party's younger leaders. Succeeding him was Low Thia Khiang, who is presently Singapore's longest-serving opposition MP. In 2003, Low raised chairman Sylvia Lim as the second face of WP and in 2016, he appointed Pritam Singh as his deputy, who took over the secretary-general post in 2018. WP holds the largest number of opposition seats since Barisan in 1963 and is the only non-PAP party to win GRCs. The party's newsletter, in existence for decades, is named "Hammer" after its symbol. |
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