Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, Singapore’s acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, resigned from the cabinet, the parliament and the ruling People’s Action Party on Monday after Prime Minister Lawrence Wong disclosed that the minister’s interactions with a woman had prompted cross-allegations of harassment, marking the city-state’s most significant political scandal in three years.
Wong announced Faishal’s resignation in a statement to local media on Monday, revealing that his office had first learned of the matter roughly a month earlier.
“This matter came to our attention about a month ago when the Prime Minister’s Office received an email from a female member of the public concerning her interactions with Assoc Prof Faishal,” Wong said. Faishal, 58, who also held the post of senior minister of state for home affairs, is married with two children.
Cross-Allegations, Then A Police Investigation
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, both Faishal and the woman were subsequently interviewed separately, and each made allegations of harassment against the other.
The matter was referred to police, who investigated the competing claims. Following that inquiry, authorities concluded that no criminal offence had been committed by either party, a determination reached in consultation with the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
Wong made clear, however, that the absence of criminal wrongdoing did not settle the matter of Faishal’s political standing. The prime minister said there remained a separate question of whether Faishal’s conduct had met the standards expected of a political office holder and member of parliament, a standard Wong indicated Faishal himself acknowledged falling short of.
Local outlet Mothership reported that Faishal accepted his conduct, which involved online messages exchanged with the woman, “fell short of standards” expected of him, prompting his decision to step down from all political roles rather than remain in office under a cloud.
A Nearly Two-Decade Career In Singaporean Politics
Faishal’s resignation ends a political career stretching back two decades. He first entered parliament in the 2006 general election, winning a seat representing the Kaki Bukit division of Marine Parade GRC as part of a People’s Action Party team that secured an uncontested walkover victory. Before entering politics, he had built a career as an associate professor in the Department of Real Estate at the National University of Singapore.
He went on to contest and win four further general elections, in 2011, 2015, 2020 and 2025, representing the Nee Soon Central division of Nee Soon GRC before moving to Marine Parade–Braddell Heights GRC last year.
Over the course of his career, he rose to hold the posts of Minister of State for Home Affairs and Minister of State for National Development concurrently between 2020 and 2025, before being elevated to acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs following last year’s general election.
Zaqy Mohamad, currently Senior Minister of State for Defence and Sustainability and the Environment, has been appointed to take over as acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs in Faishal’s place.
Singapore’s Biggest Political Scandal Since 2023
The resignation is being widely characterised in Singapore as the most consequential political scandal to hit the country’s governing establishment since July 2023, when three sitting members of parliament stepped down within weeks of one another after their extramarital affairs became public. That earlier episode saw Cheng Li Hui and then-Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin resign from the ruling PAP over an affair between them, while opposition Workers’ Party figures Leon Perera and Nicole Seah also became embroiled in a parallel controversy that led to Perera’s resignation from parliament.
Singapore’s tightly disciplined political culture, in which the PAP has governed continuously since the country’s independence, has historically treated personal conduct scandals involving sitting officeholders as serious threats to public trust, typically resulting in swift resignations rather than prolonged efforts to remain in office.
With Faishal’s departure from parliament, Wong’s cabinet must now navigate both the immediate reshuffling of ministerial responsibilities and the broader political fallout of a scandal touching one of its more senior Malay-Muslim community representatives. Faishal had been a prominent figure within Singapore’s Malay-Muslim political leadership, engaging regularly with community and religious groups in his role overseeing Muslim affairs.
His exit leaves that portfolio, along with his parliamentary seat, to be filled in the coming weeks, even as the Prime Minister’s Office continues to face questions over how the matter was handled internally in the month between when the initial complaint was received and Monday’s public announcement.
