Chee Soon Juan

Chee Soon Juan (born 20 July 1962) is a Singaporean politician, activist, and former lecturer who has been the secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) since 1993.

Prior to entering politics in 1992, Chee was a lecturer at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He was invited by Chiam See Tong to join the SDP, and was a member of the SDP's team that stood in the 1992 Marine Parade by-election. Chee subsequently succeeded Chiam as the party's secretary-general after Chiam, whom Chee and the rest of the party's leadership have had a number of disagreements with, left the party. The party had three Members of Parliament (MPs) when Chee took over as secretary-general, but lost all its seats at the 1997 general election and has not had any elected members since.

Chee has been arrested and jailed several times for his political activities, mainly for making unauthorised public speeches as well as staging demonstrations without a police permit. He has also deemed liable for defamation on multiple occasions for comments he has made about members of the country's governing People's Action Party (PAP). He was previously barred from standing in parliamentary elections because he was declared bankrupt in 2006, after failing to pay damages from a lawsuit owed to Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.

On 24 September 2012, Chee announced that he had raised the reduced sum of $30,000 which was accepted by Lee and Goh to annul his bankruptcy, which has since enabled him to contest in subsequent general elections from 2015. However, as a perennial candidate, he has never won an election since he first contested in 1992.