Sahorah Ahmat

Sahorah binte Ahmat was the first Malay assemblywoman in Singapore. Initially a member of the Singapore branch of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the head of its women's wing, she defected to the People's Action Party (PAP) in 1957 and was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly of Singapore representing the Siglap Single Member Constituency in the 1959 Singaporean general election. An ill and bedridden Sahorah provided the final vote for Lee Kuan Yew when he threatened to step down as prime minister should he lose a vote of confidence, allowing him to secure a slight majority and thus resulting in him remaining in power. She remained the only Malay woman to have been elected into Singapore parliament until Halimah Yacob was elected a Member of Parliament in 2001.

Early life and education Sahorah was born in Selangor in the mid-1930s and studied at the Rahang Malay School there. She later came to Singapore, where she studied at the Princess Elizabeth Evening School.

Career Sahorah was a social worker. Sahorah had been the vice-chairman of the party's west division's women's section and a member of the division's executive committee at the time. According to publicity chief Darus Shariff, she had resigned over disagreements regarding the party policy. Sahorah was selected to be the party's candidate for the Siglap Single Member Constituency in the 1959 Singaporean general election, in which the party was the only one to contest all 51 seats of the Legislative Assembly. The seat was "one of the most hotly contested seats in Singapore's electoral history" and her opponents included "political heavyweight" Inche Sidik of the UMNO. One of nine female candidates in the election, Sahorah gave a speech stating: "Singapore women are backward compared to women in other countries. We want to do our best." Fellow candidate John Snodgrass of the Liberal Socialist Party unsuccessfully attempted to disqualify her from the election due to a spelling error on her nomination papers. She was later made a member of the committee overseeing homes run by the Social Welfare Department. In 1960, she "took up arms against easy divorce by proposing a bill to solve the problem of maintenance for divorced Muslim women." In September 1961, she invited then-Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of National Development Ya'acob Mohamed to inspect the living conditions of villagers in Siglap. As a result, the ministry announced soon after that two villages in the area, Kampong Siglap and the kampong at Jalan Sempadan, were to receive access to electricity. In March 1962, they received assurance that their demands were to be met. Sahorah claimed to have been reluctant to support Lee as she had been "ostracised" by her colleagues at government functions and that she was "disliked" by them. She later claimed to have changed her mind as she "liked" Chan. In his autobiography, Lee described her as a "large, overweight lady of 36, a good platform speaker in Malay, simple and straightforward." The event was "seen as one of the most dramatic junctures in Singapore's recent history." The PAP members who refused to support Lee in the vote later split from the party to form the Barisan Sosialis. By then, the PAP only had a slight majority in parliament. Despite being in poor health, she was once required to attend a voting session in socks, gloves and a yellow sweater to pass bills. Sahorah, a vocal proponent of Singapore being within Malaysia, openly criticised the Barisan Sosialis, believing that their proposition for Singapore to gain independence before merging with Malaysia "revealed that the Barisan were indeed in the pockets of the Communists." Sahorah did not stand for re-election in the 1963 Singaporean general election on account of her ill health and was succeeded by Abdul Rahim Ishak.

Later life and legacy Sahorah's whereabouts in her later years are not known. It is believed that she settled there until her death. In 1991, the Beritah Harian mistakenly reported 1962 as the year of her death, an incident which Muhammad Suhail Mohd Yazid of the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute attributed to her "faded presence in public memory." He notes that while she is "often remembered for her crucial role in giving the PAP government that single vote of confidence to save it from collapse", she "has often been confined to that moment" and little is known of her overall. Yazid writes that Sahorah "managed to transcend expectations and establish her legacy." Norma Yahya of the Workers' Party also stood as a candidate for the Changi Single Member Constituency in the 1972 Singaporean general election.