2013 was the worst year of my life: NSP’s Nicole Seah

SINGAPORE — She strode into the political limelight as a confident, young opposition candidate in the 2011 General Election, but Ms Nicole Seah has laid bare the frustrations her political involvement and activities have caused her, in a lengthy, candid Facebook post.

Her life took a “sharp detour” after the elections because people became more interested in “what I was doing politically than professionally, which was annoying because I was doing pretty well at work”, and there were expectations of her to be “as active as an elected MP (Member of Parliament)”, she wrote on Saturday.

There was the pressure of keeping up appearances, with whether each thing she did would help her get elected in 2016 weighing on her mind.

She was also worn out from juggling work and going for house visits and walkabouts, “feeling like I was reading off a script every time I met a new resident because my brain was so dead I was on autopilot”.

The 27-year-old also said she was “naive, arm-twisted into making some pretty bad decisions”, citing the Presidential Elections, during which she lobbied for Mr Tan Jee Say, as an example. “Terrible, irreversible mistake, completely underestimated what my lobbying could do,” she said.

When contacted, Mr Tan said he was caught by surprise by Ms Seah’s remarks and said he had “no idea” what she was referring to. “We can understand the stress that she has gone through ... We are all here to support her,” he added.

Ms Seah, the Second Assistant Secretary-General of the National Solidarity Party, could not be reached for comments.

When contacted, party chief Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss declined to elaborate, other than saying the post was “self-explanatory”. She confirmed that Ms Seah was still with the party and her activities were still “status quo”. Party comrades also declined to say whether they knew what prompted Ms Seah to write her post.

Ms Seah also gave a glimpse into her personal battles in the last two years. Describing this year as the “worse (sic) year of my life”, she said there have been rape and death threats against her and her family. “I was on the verge of snapping. That was when my meltdown began.”

When she heard that her grandmother was diagnosed with third-stage stomach cancer in February, she suffered a physical panic attack.

She also lost two jobs and contracted dengue fever.