Women traditionally played a significantly smaller role than their male counterparts in Singapore. Nonetheless, in recent years, there is an increasing level of female participation in the Singapore political arena.
In 26 January 2013, Ms Lee Li Lian became the second woman from an opposition party to win a seat in Parliament by 3182 votes over the ruling party's candidate, Dr Koh Poh Koon, in a by-election in Punggol East, after Sylvia Lim Swee Lian, currently the Chairperson of the opposition Workers' Party (WP) and an elected Member of Parliament (MP) representing Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (Aljunied GRC) whose team won 54.71% of the votes (54.72% including overseas votes), the first time that an opposition party won a GRC since the system's introduction on 1 June 1988. Lim's victory made her the first female opposition MP in Singapore's post-independence history.