in the by-election, koh faced two candidates who had stood against palmer in the 2011 general election – lee li lian of the workers' party (wp) (who won 41.01% of the votes in the constituency in 2011) and desmond lim of the singapore democratic alliance (sda) (who won 4.45% of the votes in 2011). a fourth candidate, kenneth jeyaretnam of the reform party (rp), also joined the by-election contest, making it a four-way fight.