The battle for the soul of voters in Bukit Batok was expected to be in the hands of People’s Action Party (PAP)’s David Ong and Singapore Democratic Party (SDP)’s Sadasivam Veriyah.
But then this lone ranger turned up at Keming Primary School yesterday, donning a striped blue shirt, a mirthful grin and nomination papers in hand. It’s none other than 45-year-old Samir Salim Neji, the third contestant vying for the Bukit Batok Single-Member Constituency seat as an independent candidate — and nobody knew who the heck he was.
The New Paper however managed to uncover his origins. One of Lee Kuan Yew’s original foreign talents who arrived in Singapore close to 20 years ago, he hails from Kerala, India and has been a Singapore citizen for 15 years. He fell in love with his newfound homeland shortly after he arrived, working his way up to his current role as managing director of software firm Anaplan Asia. Reportedly, he’s fighting for more “family happiness” and “less stress”, so that’s always a good thing we guess.
The self proclaimed tech-expert expressed his intentions to fight for “family happiness” and plans to engage voters through social media. This despite having no social media presence at all — we couldn’t find any Facebook or Instagram pages under his name — or website, even. Well at least he has Twitter and Linkedin going for him.
It looks like he may even have a tough time in the polls. He arrived at the nomination centre with only three other people, not knowing that he needed more — one proposer, one seconder and four assentors — to be qualified for the nominations. Initially disqualified, some PAP members apparently offered three Bukit Batok residents to be his assentors. And thus he managed to fulfil the requirements and qualify as a candidate.
What a strange fellow. Time will tell if he’ll be able to even make a difference in the polls or will be yet another dud who’ll lose his election deposit of $14,500.
Photo: Anaplan website screengrab
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