James Gomez

Gomez has written extensively on civil society, democracy, human rights and new media in Singapore and in the Southeast Asian region.[6]

His first book was Self Censorship: Singapore's Shame (1999).[7] He then went on to write Internet Politics: Surveillance and Intermediation in Singapore and other academic articles on new media and politics on Singapore and countries in the Southeast Asia region. For his work on and off the internet he was ranked as one of Asia's 50 most powerful communicators in 2001.

Gomez joined the Workers' Party in 2001. He was a member of the Workers' Party team which attempted to contest the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency at the 2001 general election, but were disqualified because their nomination papers were incomplete. The name of the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) they were intending to contest had not been written down on the form.[8]

He stood as a member of the Workers' Party's team in the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency at the election, ultimately losing to the team of the governing People's Action Party (PAP) in the constituency by 44% of the votes to 56%.

In the lead up to the election, Gomez drew international attention when he accused the Elections Department of losing his minority-race candidate's application form.

The "James Gomez Saga" attracted considerable media attention during the 2006 general election. It began after Gomez claimed that he had submitted his minority-race candidate's application form during a visit to the Elections Department with Workers' Party Chairman Sylvia Lim on 24 April. (As teams of candidates in GRCs must include a minority-race candidate, a candidate from each party's team in a GRC must make such an application before the election.) Two days later, Gomez called in at the Elections Department to enquire about the status of the form. He was indignant when he was told that they had not received his form, and he told an officer from the department that there would be "consequences" if it had been misplaced. The following day, the Elections Department confirmed that their closed-circuit television footage had revealed that Gomez had in fact put the form in his bag and left the building without submitting it.[9]

On 29 April 29, Gomez apologised after the release of the CCTV evidence and admitted that he had not filed his application, contrary to his earlier claims. He said that he had been distracted by his busy schedule.[9] (His failure to submit the form did not prevent the Workers' Party team from running in Aljunied GRC because they had a second minority candidate on their team, Mohammed Rahizan bin Yaacob, who had submitted the required paperwork.)

PAP candidate Inderjit Singh speculated that Gomez's non-submission of the form may have been an intentional ploy to try and gain publicity and cause confusion.[10] Gomez responded by insisting that he had made a genuine mistake and called for others to "move on" from the issue. On the eve of polling day, the Workers' Party leader, Low Thia Khiang, backed Gomez and stated that "the incident was merely an unintentional omission, a mistake made while busy". However Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said that the facts showed that Gomez had lied.[11][12]

On polling day, Gomez and his Workers' Party colleagues in Aljunied GRC lost to the PAP's team by 56,593 votes (43.9%) to 74,843 (56.1%). This was the highest percentage of the vote garnered by any opposition losing candidates, and was therefore enough to secure one of the team's members (Party Chairman Sylvia Lim) a seat as a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP).

Immediately after the election, the Elections Department filed a complaint about Gomez threatening a member of their staff by saying there would be "consequences" if his form has been lost.

On 8 May, two days after the election, Gomez was stopped by police at Changi Airport and prevented from boarding a flight to Stockholm (where he worked at the time for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). He was held for questioning over whether he had committed criminal intimidation in his dealings with the Elections Department. Gomez and other members of the Workers' Party, including Low Thia Kiang and Sylvia Lim, were questioned regarding the issue.[13] On 9 May, Gomez was questioned for a second time for five hours,[14] and for a third time on 10 May for three hours.[15] Meanwhile, Low assured police that there would be full co-operation with the police on the matter.[16]

In the end, Gomez was let off with a "stern warning" regarding the incident. The police maintained that there had been "several serious inconsistencies" in the account of events that Gomez had given. However the public prosecutor stated that the willingness of Gomez to co-operate with the police and his lack of a previous criminal record led to the decision.[17][18] Following this, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said that the decision not to prosecute did not make Gomez any less dishonest and called him a "bad egg".[19]

As a result of the saga, "James Gomez" became the most searched term on Technorati in May 2006.[20]

Gomez joined the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) in November 2010.[21]

At the 2011 general election, Gomez stood as an SDP candidate in the Sembawang Group Representation Constituency. The SDP's team was defeated by the team from the PAP by 63.9% of the votes to 36.1%.