Singapore GE2020: 226 political donation certificates applied for

More than 220 people have applied for a political donation certificate for the July 10 general election.

Yesterday, the Elections Department (ELD) said in a statement that it had received 226 applications for the political donation certificate by the Friday deadline.

This means there could be as many candidates for 93 seats in Parliament, although a number of parties typically apply for additional or standby certificates.

Singapore's election rules require all candidates to submit political donation forms, on which they have to record donations received and declare that the funds are permitted under the law, among other things. This paperwork is needed to obtain political donation certificates, which the Registrar of Political Donations will issue by the eve of Nomination Day.

Candidates seeking election will have to submit these certificates with their nomination papers on Nomination Day on Tuesday. They must also have a proposer, seconder and at least four assenters, who must all be eligible to vote in the constituency. There were 220 applications for such certificates in the last general election in 2015.

ELD also said it has received 37 applications for the certificate of the Malay Community Committee and 35 for the certificate of the Indian and Other Minority Communities Committee. Applications closed on Friday.

Every group of candidates that wishes to stand for parliamentary election in a group representation constituency is required to have at least one candidate belonging to either the Malay community or the Indian and other minority communities, depending on the requirement for that particular GRC.

Separately, ELD yesterday said Singaporeans can use their passports in lieu of their NRICs to register on Polling Day.

Identity cards issued to uniformed personnel by the Ministry of Defence, Singapore Police Force or Singapore Civil Defence Force are also allowed, according to ELD's website. If a voter brings his passport, the election official will manually key his NRIC number into the e-registration system.

Noting that requests to replace, collect or change the address on NRICs have surged in the last few days, ELD added that the address on the poll card is based on the cut-off date of March 1 for the preparation of the Registers of Electors.

Voters are assigned their polling stations based on their registered addresses as of that date, it said.