Election spotlight: Will WP stronghold Aljunied feel the sting of controversies?
With battle lines redrawn and significant changes to many constituencies, which will be the ones under the spotlight in GE2025? The Straits Times dives into the issues and concerns on the ground in Aljunied GRC.
A banner with Aljunied GRC MPs (from left) Faisal Manap, Sylvia Lim, Pritam Singh and Gerald Giam at a walkway in Kovan on March 13.ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN
Isabelle Liew
Apr 05, 2025
SINGAPORE – As the first group representation constituency ever won by an opposition party, Aljunied has taken on added significance at the upcoming general election.
The constituency – made up of 144,032 voters – in Eunos and Bedok Reservoir-Punggol in the east, Kaki Bukit in the south, Paya Lebar in the centre and Serangoon in the west – has shaped up as a stronghold for the WP over the past three elections.
This election, the boundaries will remain largely unchanged, apart from three polling districts in Tampines West – comprising 3,834 voters –
moving to the PAP-held Tampines GRC.
The opposition party first wrested Aljunied from the PAP in the 2011 General Election, with the WP team led by then party chief Low Thia Khiang, and consisting of party chairman Sylvia Lim, corporate lawyer Chen Show Mao, family counsellor Faisal Manap and post-graduate law student Pritam Singh, winning 54.72 per cent of the valid votes.
Then, in the 2015 GE, the same team barely held on to the constituency, picking up 50.96 per cent of votes after a nail-biting battle that triggered a recount into the wee hours.
In the Covid-19 pandemic polls in 2020, the party managed a near 10-point swing, winning with 59.95 per cent of votes.
The comfortable victory solidified Mr Singh’s position in the party – it was his first electoral outing after taking over as party chief from Mr Low in 2018 – and entrenched Aljunied GRC as the WP’s home base.
This has sparked talk once again about whether the time is ripe for one of the WP Aljunied stalwarts to repeat the feat achieved by Mr Low in 2011, when he left his stronghold of Hougang to lead the WP to the opposition’s first-ever victory in a GRC.
WP declined requests for an interview for this report.
How the battle will shape up
In some ways, the party will go into the upcoming polls in Aljunied from a position of strength.
In the past four years, Mr Singh, leader of the WP Aljunied team, has gained prominence on the national stage as Leader of the Opposition.
After the 2020 polls, then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
had appointed the WP chief to the role, in recognition of the strong desire among Singaporeans for a greater diversity of views in politics.
Mr Singh was provided more staff and resources to aid in his task of leading the opposition in presenting alternative policy views during parliamentary debates, and also scrutinising government positions and actions in the House.
Some of his speeches have resonated with voters such as Mr Douglas Neo, 45, who is self-employed.
The Eunos resident said that he appreciates that Mr Singh is not afraid to question the Government on issues like the goods and services tax increase that affect everyone, especially the working class.
At the upcoming general election, Aljunied GRC’s boundaries will remain largely unchanged, apart from three polling districts in Tampines West – comprising 3,834 voters – moving to the PAP-held Tampines GRC.ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH
Meanwhile, the
long-running issue with the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) also finally came to a close in 2024 after 13 years.
The saga had started first with qualified financial statements and escalated into a special audit by the Auditor-General’s Office and a further court-ordered audit which found flaws in the town council’s governance, such as improper payments amounting to $33.7 million. In 2017, AHTC, under the direction of an independent panel it appointed, sued Mr Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Low, as well as some other town councillors.
They were found liable for having breached their fiduciary duties and duties of care by the High Court in 2019. But the judgment was largely overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2022, which instead found them
negligent in allowing conflicts of interest to persist.
In 2024, both sides announced that they had
reached a settlement after mediation, and had dropped claims for costs and damages against each other.
As part of the settlement, the MPs could not comment on the issue further. But accompanying the announcement, they posted online a picture of Mr Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Low smiling outside Maxwell Chambers.
In fact, even before this resolution, the town council had turned in unqualified financial statements from 2019.
In the latest statement from the 2024 financial year, it reported an accumulated surplus of $3.87 million and a balance of $53.7 million in its sinking funds.
Amid these developments, speculation has swirled around whether Mr Singh or Ms Lim would leave Aljunied to go to neighbouring East Coast GRC, where a WP team managed to poll 46.6 per cent of the valid votes in 2020 against a PAP team led by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.
Some party sources have also suggested that WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap could leave to face off against Minister for Social and Family Development and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Masagos Zulkifli in Tampines GRC.
Given the WP’s oft-stated goal to take one-third of parliamentary seats in the medium term, analysts have not ruled out such deployments.
Singapore Management University law don Eugene Tan said: “It would be the right thing for Pritam Singh to leave the comfort and safety of Aljunied GRC to earn an authoritative mandate in the wake of his perjury conviction.”
Institute of Policy Studies senior research fellow Gillian Koh, though, said this would be a risky move. She added that it would be more prudent for Mr Singh to remain at his base and draw on his longstanding ties going into GE2025.
Indeed, there are other factors the party would need to consider, given the controversies it has had to deal with over the past few years.
Most recently, Mr Singh was
convicted of lying under oath to a parliamentary committee, and fined $7,000 for each of two charges, after he was found to have been complicit in a lying saga involving his party’s Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan.
Ms Khan had
resigned as an MP and left the party after she lied in Parliament in 2021, sparking a probe by Parliament’s Committee of Privileges (COP).
Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan, in delivering his judgment, said that Mr Singh had “wilfully” lied to the COP about how he dealt with the untruth that Ms Khan told in Parliament.
Mr Singh has said he will appeal against the conviction.
In addition, the party also lost Aljunied GRC MP Leon Perera and WP Youth Wing president Nicole Seah when they
resigned in 2023 following the emergence online of a video of them sharing an intimate moment.
The two, who were members of the party’s top decision-making body, had to leave as they had not been frank and honest about their past extramarital affair when they were first asked about it, Mr Singh had said at a press conference held in July 2023.
A Serangoon resident who gave her name only as Madam Ang, 52, said she had lost confidence in the party after the departure of Mr Perera, her former MP.
“He was an MP who responded quickly to feedback and remembered residents by name. I was very disappointed when he resigned,” said the homemaker.
These scandals have dented the party’s reputation, and may have an impact at the ballot box, said analysts.
Dr Koh said voters may lose confidence in WP if they see Mr Singh’s conviction as undermining the claim that WP should be voted in to hold the PAP accountable and ensure integrity in governance.
Prof Tan said: “There will be some impact for sure because the WP will not be able to claim bragging rights to being a more responsible party than the PAP.”
But he added that given the party’s standing as the leading opposition player for the past 20 years, the impact was unlikely to be “game-changing”.
In fact, Dr Koh said if Mr Singh’s conviction “is presented and accepted as the price of carrying the burden of being the political opposition in Singapore”, voters might even double down on their support for him and the WP.
Retail associate Nur Afifi, 26, a Bedok Reservoir resident, is among such voters.
Mr Perera’s affair was a personal matter and Mr Singh’s court case was “unfair”, she said.
Then, there are those like retired carpenter How Leng Chuan, 75, who said he had lost confidence in the WP.
The long-time resident of Eunos, who has been there for more than 30 years, said: “It feels like scandals about WP keep surfacing. It’s tiring to read about them, and it makes the party look very messy.”
As with what happened in 2011, the party is likely to keep under wraps any strategic moves of its leaders.
For now, Mr Kenneth Tiong, 36, who has been the coordinator for Meet-the-People Sessions in Serangoon since 2024, is the most prominent new face
to pop up in Aljunied.
Residents told The Straits Times that they have seen Mr Tiong, who is director of tech start-up Sensemake AI, making door-to-door visits in recent months.
He has also been seen at walkabouts and events with WP MPs, and appeared in several social media photos posted by Mr Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Giam.
In a Facebook post on March 26, Mr Tiong said he felt “compelled to step up and play a more active role in shaping the conversation about where our nation is headed” at the upcoming election.
Meanwhile, the PAP’s Aljunied slate has also firmed up over the past year.
Four new branch chairpersons have been appointed: Dr Faisal Abdul Aziz, 37, clinical director at dental group Nuffield Dental; Mr Daniel Liu, 40, managing director of urban planning consultancy Morrow Architects and Planners; Dr Adrian Ang, 42, a director at facility and environmental management company Chye Thiam Maintenance; and Mr Jagathishwaran Rajo, 38, an assistant director at the National Trades Union Congress’ Freelancers and Self-employed Unit.
Ms Chan Hui Yuh, 48, a marketing director who has helmed the PAP’s Serangoon branch since 2014, is the only one who has been retained from the PAP’s 2020 slate.
She said that Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who is secretary-general of the PAP, will ultimately decide where they are fielded.
She added: “For us, we won’t take any vote for granted. We hope the residents will choose us to serve them.”
Ms Chan told ST the new branch chairpersons are “long-time comrades” that have served in other PAP branches across the island for at least 10 years, and have hit the ground running engaging residents.
Even then, she noted that it will be a “tough fight” in Aljunied.
(From left) Dr Faisal Abdul Aziz, Mr Daniel Liu and Ms Chan Hui Yuh, who chair three of the PAP’s branches in Aljunied GRC, at an event at Kovan Hub on March 23.ST PHOTO: SHINTARO TAY
Mr Jagathishwaran has been active in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC since 2009, and Mr Liu has been volunteering in Nee Soon GRC since 2014.
Dr Ang was secretary of the PAP’s Toa Payoh West-Thomson branch for 12 years, while Dr Faisal has been volunteering with the PAP’s Kaki Bukit branch for about 10 years.
Political observers said it could be an uphill battle for the PAP’s newcomers.
Despite being accomplished professionally, they are “clearly the underdogs”, said SMU’s Prof Tan.
He added that it will be hard for them to “neutralise the staying power” of the WP team in such a short time.
Dr Koh reckons they can put up a tough fight if the new branch chairpersons engage residents meaningfully.
Responding to residents’ concerns
While the WP has pitched the battle in Aljunied GRC as a proxy for the national battle between the ruling party and the opposition, municipal and national issues continue to feature in voters’ minds.
About 28.7 per cent of residents in Aljunied are between the ages of 46 and 65, and 27.8 per cent are working adults aged between 26 and 45, based on an ST analysis of data published by the Department of Statistics in June 2024.
At the municipal level, AHTC had implemented a five-year plan in 2021 to rejuvenate the town. An estimated expenditure of $195 million was projected, and as at March 31, 2024, $93.26 million had been committed, and $46 million had been used, the party said in its annual report.
Residents who spoke to ST said they were generally satisfied with municipal services, but hope for upgrading and improvements to their ageing estates.
Madam Sakunthala, 61, who goes by one name, noted that the cleanliness of the estate has improved from when the WP first took over in 2011, but added that the lifts at her 30-year-old block broke down quite often.
She also wishes for more sheltered walkways from her home in Eunos to Kaki Bukit MRT station. Currently, the part-time tutor has to walk “one big round” to stay under shelter the whole way.
Other residents said repair works are not done fast enough in the ageing estates.
Housewife Eden Tan, 36, said she has had to deal with leaking ceilings in her top-floor flat in Serangoon since moving in in 2023.
Reroofing works in the 40-year-old block are expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2025, and repair works by the town council in the interim did not help alleviate the issue, she said.
“The leaks have spread to more areas over the past few months and my ceiling is crumbling away,” said Ms Tan, who lives in the flat with her husband, five-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter.
“It’s a very distressing ordeal for our family and I just hope the town council can expedite repairs.”
A Bedok Reservoir resident who wanted to be known only as Ms Hartini said she asked the town council for help to repair her letterbox, which has been bent out of shape since she moved into the 39-year-old block about six years ago.
“They couldn’t give me a clear answer on whether the responsibility fell on them or other agencies. I just stopped trying,” said the 42-year-old consultant.
While the WP declined to comment for this report, according to AHTC’s annual report for the 2023 financial year, 26 covered linkways were in the pipeline, with construction in progress for six of them.
Meanwhile, MP Faisal Manap told ST at the sidelines of his Meet-the-People session on March 19 that improvements have been made at both Bedok 538 Market and Food Centre and Kaki Bukit 511 Market and Food Centre, such as re-tiling and barrier-free access ramps for wheelchair users.
He noted that Kaki Bukit has an ageing population and was designated a Silver Zone, an area with enhanced safety features and reduced speed limits to protect elderly residents.
The town council had also committed $55.5 million on repair and redecoration works across 495 blocks, and works on 12 blocks were completed by March 2024.
In addition, a total of $18 million was spent on lift maintenance, including replacements and enhancements.
On national issues, the rising cost of living, retirement adequacy and housing affordability were common concerns raised by Aljunied voters.
Security officer Mohammed Yusof, who lives in a three-room flat in Kaki Bukit, said grocery bills for his family of five have gone up by about 20 per cent from three years ago.
The 62-year-old takes home about $2,900 a month, and spends $200 a week on groceries. He said most months he lives from pay cheque to pay cheque, and hardly has savings.
“I recently had to fork out $1,300 to buy a laptop for my son’s polytechnic studies. I skipped lunch for half a month,” he said.
Nursing student Chen Xin Hui, 23, who will be voting for the first time, lamented the rising HDB resale prices.
“I don’t know if I can afford a resale flat in the future if I’m unable to get a BTO (Build-To-Order) flat,” said the Paya Lebar resident.
Mr Jagathishwaran from the PAP’s Aljunied team said he hopes to help residents with cost-of-living concerns.
“In my outreach, one of the things I noticed was that there are a lot of caregivers in my ward – caring for elderly, young children and those with special needs. I thought I could help them with resources,” he said.
In January, PAP’s Eunos branch gave about 40 families FairPrice vouchers, and brought in a FairPrice grocery truck.
With the WP having grabbed Sengkang GRC in GE2020, Aljunied GRC has lost its status as the only opposition-held GRC.
In a sense, voters in the constituency no longer have to bear all the burden of ensuring that there is an opposition voice in Parliament.
Even then, Aljunied has continued to keep some of its status as the WP, and even opposition, standard-bearer, not least because it is still the home base of the WP leaders and the Leader of the Opposition.
The WP, depending on its Aljunied slate, may find out how much this matters to residents in the coming election.
