Lim Tean

Lim was born in 1964 as the eldest son of Lim Chin Teong, a senior civil servant who served as Chief Executive Director of the People's Association (PA) between the late 1970s and early 1980s. His mother, Aw Eng Lian, was a Chinese-language teacher at Zhonghua Girls School for over 40 years. Both of Lim's parents graduated from Nanyang University, a defunct university in Singapore.[5]

At the age of seven, Lim enrolled into Montfort Junior School for his primary education but was disrupted after his father accepted a posting by the Singapore Government as First Secretary in Singapore's mission to the Soviet Union, and Lim travelled with his family to live in Moscow.[6] While in the Soviet Union, Lim attended the Anglo-American School of Moscow between 1971 and 1974.

After three years in the Soviet Union, Lim's parents became increasingly worried about the future of his children's education. They resolved for Lim's father to return to Singapore and transfer to the civil service. Consequently, Lim returned to Montfort Junior School as a Primary 4 student. He continued there and went on to attend Montfort Secondary School. After graduating from Montfort Secondary School, Lim entered Hwa Chong Junior College, where he was a student councillor. He took biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics for his A Level examinations.

After his graduation from Hwa Chong Junior College, Lim enlisted into the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) to complete his National Service and was commissioned as an artillery officer.

In 1985, Lim went to England to study law at the University of Reading. He was conferred a LLB in 1988 and resided in London as a qualified barrister at the Middle Temple.[7] He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1989. He further studied a Master of Law (LLM) degree at Gonville and Cauis College at the University of Cambridge. Lim remained in Cambridge from 1989 to 1990.

After being conferred his LLM, Lim returned to Singapore and was recruited by Drew & Napier LLC in 1990. He was admitted to the Singapore Bar in June 1991. At Drew and Napier, Lim became the pupil of Steven Chong, who became the Singaporean Attorney-General from 2012 to 2014. Lim joined Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP on 2 January 1998 and became its Head of the Admiralty & Shipping department in 2000. In 2007, Lim was promoted to equity partnership in Rajah and Tann.

Concurrently in 2007, Lim took a sabbatical from the legal practice to explore the business world. He founded an Indonesian mining company based out of Sulawesi.[8] His mining company became the first company to produce and ship iron-ore from the island.[9][10] In 2017, Lim returned to Singapore and founded his law firm Carson Law Chambers.[11]

Lim first became involved in politics in 2011 when he joined the National Solidarity Party (NSP). However, he remained relatively inactive within the party until 2015, when then Secretary-General Hazel Poa resigned in protest over the party's policy regarding multi-cornered contests.[25]

Just a week before the 2015 General Elections, NSP approached Lim and invited him to serve as their new Secretary-General. Despite the relatively short time before the election, Lim accepted and along with a team of candidates contested Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC), receiving 24.9% of the votes cast.[26] In May 2017, Lim resigned from his position, citing disagreements with the party.[27][28][29]

In 2018, Lim together with other opposition leaders called for an alliance of Singaporean opposition parties, with Tan Cheng Bock being proposed as its leader.[30] However, this failed to materialise.[31] The call for a similar alliance was repeated before the general elections in 2020.[32]

On 29 October 2018, Lim announced the founding of a new political party, Peoples Voice, headed by himself.[33][34] Peoples Voice contested in the 2020 Singaporean general election for two GRCs and one Single Member Constituency (SMC), with Lim contesting Jalan Besar GRC with three other party members.[35]