Workers’ Party (WP) chairperson Sylvia Lim revealed in a recent interview that the party was not expecting to win Sengkang GRC and that the momentum shifted during the campaign period, leading the party’s team at the ward to pull off a stunning upset.
The 2020 general election saw the WP make significant inroads even though prominent parliamentarians Low Thia Khiang, Chen Show Mao and Png Eng Huat stepped down from electoral politics. In what was the first election under the leadership of Pritam Singh, the WP held on to its Aljunied GRC-Hougang SMC stronghold and scored better than it did in the 2015 general election.
On top of winning a stronger mandate in the two wards it already held, the WP made history once again and clinched yet another GRC – the second multi-member constituency to ever be won by the opposition – when the WP team at Sengkang GRC won and unseated three political office-holders.
Sharing that her party was “very pleased with the vote of confidence,” Ms Lim noted the criticism against the Government’s decision to hold an early election amid the COVID-19 crisis and said, “There was a sense that the majority of Singaporeans felt that the government should focus on controlling and handling the pandemic, rather than to have an election at this time because its term was still able to run until April next year.”
Although the opposition gave its best performance to date and made significant inroads in the latest election, Ms Lim said that it would take time for the opposition to become a true alternative to the PAP behemoth – which still holds 83 out of 93 seats in Parliament. She said:
“Rome wasn’t built in a day. A lot of how Singapore moves forward, whether the ruling party will have a smaller majority in parliament in the next few elections or whether it deteriorates to the point where the voters feel that another party is able to take over — this is all in the horizon — not so immediate.”
Bloomberg
The 2020 general election saw the WP make significant inroads even though prominent parliamentarians Low Thia Khiang, Chen Show Mao and Png Eng Huat stepped down from electoral politics. In what was the first election under the leadership of Pritam Singh, the WP held on to its Aljunied GRC-Hougang SMC stronghold and scored better than it did in the 2015 general election.
On top of winning a stronger mandate in the two wards it already held, the WP made history once again and clinched yet another GRC – the second multi-member constituency to ever be won by the opposition – when the WP team at Sengkang GRC won and unseated three political office-holders.
Sharing that her party was “very pleased with the vote of confidence,” Ms Lim noted the criticism against the Government’s decision to hold an early election amid the COVID-19 crisis and said, “There was a sense that the majority of Singaporeans felt that the government should focus on controlling and handling the pandemic, rather than to have an election at this time because its term was still able to run until April next year.”
Although the opposition gave its best performance to date and made significant inroads in the latest election, Ms Lim said that it would take time for the opposition to become a true alternative to the PAP behemoth – which still holds 83 out of 93 seats in Parliament. She said:
“Rome wasn’t built in a day. A lot of how Singapore moves forward, whether the ruling party will have a smaller majority in parliament in the next few elections or whether it deteriorates to the point where the voters feel that another party is able to take over — this is all in the horizon — not so immediate.”
Bloomberg
