NSP’s Nicole Seah shifts to Thailand for work

Opposition politician Nicole Seah on Tuesday night announced that she will be relocating to Bangkok.

In a status update she posted on her public Facebook page, she called it “a difficult decision”, but said she will be going there to further her career in advertising.

The move, reported Mumbrella Asia, will be from her employer IPG Mediabrands’s Singapore branch to its Thai office, where she will take a role as a digital manager in Bangkok. In Singapore, she has held the position of senior account manager at the agency since November last year. Her mother, Patricia Lim, holds the position of Managing Director at the company's Singapore office.

Explaining her move in her statement, the 27-year-old said the larger scale of work, managerial duties and budgets involved will be her “training for the challenges of public service”.

“ASEAN as a region has much diversity to offer,” she wrote. “I am constantly humbled by the grace, and creativity of the Thais. As a single person living in a new country alone, I am excited to integrate with the locals, make new friends and learn more from a different culture.”

Seah is still the second assistant secretary-general at the National Solidarity Party, a position she says she will retain, and promised she will stand for election in 2016.

She added that she will return to Singapore once a month for the party’s Saturday morning programme and house visits, and that the Macpherson Tuition Project, which she started, “will continue without disruption, with the help of steadfast volunteers”.

Seah’s announcement was greeted with mostly warm responses and encouraging comments from her supporters, with more than 2,800 likes and 94 shares by Wednesday morning, 10 hours after she posted it.

In a comment on her post, she added, “I will never forget Singapore. Singapore is home, and I will be back to contribute on an even stronger level, as many of you are already contributing.”

The popular opposition politician last made headlines when she posted a lengthy reflection on her personal Facebook page in November last year, revealing that she suffered a meltdown over a series of events that unfolded in her life.

Reports on AsiaOne and Lianhe Wanbao that subsequently emerged alleging she was dating a married man resulted in Seah threatening to sue the publications, forcing them to publish public apologies for the inaccuracy.