SINGAPORE — Former Workers' Party (WP) MP Leon Perera on Jan 28 announced that he will be based in New York City for work, a move that signals he is unlikely to contest in the upcoming general election.

In a post on LinkedIn, Perera said he had recently taken up a new role in his company as executive director for Yamada Consulting Group USA, the American office of the group.

Speculation has been swirling since early 2024 that Perera had joined the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) after he was seen at several of the opposition party's events and posted about it on social media.

PSP and Perera previously said he was assisting the party and was not a member. Still, murmurings on the ground continued, with some speculating that he could be fielded as a candidate in the election due by November 2025.

Asked if he will be contesting in the coming general election, Perera declined to comment.

"For now I have nothing to add to what I have posted," he told The Straits Times.

A PSP spokesman confirmed that Perera is still a volunteer with the party. With his move to New York City, he is all but certain to be sitting out the election.

The 54-year-old first contested in a general election in 2015 under the WP banner. He was a Non-Constituency MP for one term before becoming an elected MP of Aljunied GRC in 2020.

He resigned from the party in July 2023 after a past affair with then fellow party member Nicole Seah was exposed via a video leaked online. Seah, who was the party's candidate at East Coast GRC in the 2020 General Election, also left the party.

Since then, he had been focusing on his work as chairman of the board of Yamada Consulting and Spire, a company formed in 2016 when Yamada Business Consulting from Japan merged with Spire Research and Consulting, a market research firm that Perera co-founded in 2000.

In his Jan 28 post, Perera said his new role entails developing the company's business in the US and working with large and mid-sized companies looking to set up shop in Asia.

He wrote: "I hope this period of time will help me to develop new perspectives and ideas about what is going on in the world, where it is heading and, most importantly, what is to be done to build a better future."

"I also hope for fresh perspectives about my homeland. It is said that to see clearly, you sometimes need some distance," he added.

Perera said he would remain as chairman of the board for Yamada Consulting and Spire group, and will help link Singapore and Asian companies to investment opportunities in the US and globally.

"In this context, I expect to be back to Singapore fairly frequently (dashing the hopes of any Singaporeans out there who would rather be rid of me permanently!)," he wrote.

He also talked about his first impressions of staying in New York, saying that his two "great fears" about the winter cold and the cost of living were "not as daunting as they might first appear".

"This is an extremely multicultural city, as the Year of the Snake displays at malls reminded me. Manhattan is fairly walkable, which gives me much-needed physical exercise. Having said that, I am still only scratching the surface after two weeks, there is so much more to discover and experience," he said.

"I want to express my enormous thanks to my wife, who has been travelling with me and will also divide her time to some extent between the two cities."

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.