Reform Party leader Kenneth Jeyaretnam dies aged 67
www.straitstimes.com
SINGAPORE – Kenneth Jeyaretnam, secretary-general of the Reform Party, died on July 18. He was 67.
His death was announced by his wife, Amanda Jeyaretnam, in a Facebook post on the afternoon of July 19. She said Jeyaretnam “died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family”.
She said funeral details for a small family service are still being finalised, and that a memorial to celebrate his life will be arranged at a later date.
“Thank you for your love and support and to everyone who managed to visit him in the hospital, please know it meant a lot to him,” she said.
Jeyaretnam is the elder son of the late opposition MP J.B. Jeyaretnam – popularly known as JBJ – who was the first opposition politician elected into the Singapore Parliament after independence in 1965, and established the Reform Party in 2008.
After his father’s passing in September 2008, Jeyaretnam took over to helm the Reform Party from April 2009.
He stood in three General Elections, as part of RP’s slate that contested West Coast GRC in 2011 and 2015, and Ang Mo Kio in 2020. RP was unsuccessful each time.
He also contested in a by-election in 2013, after PAP MP Michael Palmer resigned from the PAP and gave up his parliamentary seat in Punggol East SMC over an extramarital affair. Jeyaretnam and Singapore Democratic Alliance’s Mr Desmond Lim netted less than 2 per cent of the vote combined, which saw Workers’ Party candidate Lee Li Lian win a four-cornered fight that also included PAP’s Koh Poh Koon.