GE2025: WP wins in Sengkang GRC with 56.31%, improving on 2020 showing

Straits Times

09-05-2025

The WP's Sengkang GRC candidates (from left) Louis Chua, He Ting Ru, Jamus Lim and Abdul Muhaimin addressing supporters at Serangoon Stadium on May 3. ST PHOTO: SARAH STANLEY
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SINGAPORE - The WP has strengthened its hold over Sengkang GRC, winning 56.31 per cent of the vote share against the PAP – a wider margin than that during the 2020 election.
Its comfortable victory entrenches the opposition party's grasp over north-east Singapore, with Sengkang GRC looking likely to become a WP stronghold alongside neighbouring Aljunied GRC and Hougang SMC.
Incumbent MPs He Ting Ru, 41; Jamus Lim, 49; and Louis Chua, 37; and new candidate Abdul Muhaimin, 36, took 66,383 of the 117,888 valid ballots cast on May 3.
They beat a refreshed PAP slate – led by eye doctor Lam Pin Min, 55 – which scored 43.69 per cent, or 51,505 votes. Its other members are political newcomers Elmie Nekmat, 43; Bernadette Giam, 38, and Theodora Lai, 39.
The 2025 election was deemed by political observers to have been the ruling party's best chance of reclaiming the four-member constituency, given that it had been in WP hands for just a term following 2020's electoral upset when the team in blue won with 52.12 per cent.
Instead, the WP improved its vote share in Sengkang GRC by four points.
This is set against a nationwide vote swing towards the PAP, though WP-held constituencies remained constant or improved on their margins.
At Bedok Stadium, where teams of PAP candidates and supporters gathered, the mood among the Sengkang contingent was one of resignation – a sharp contrast to the rest of the crowd armed with banners, LED signs and air horns. Dr Lam pledged: 'To Sengkang residents – the PAP team will never abandon you, we will be back stronger and we will want to win Sengkang back the next time!'
The triumphant WP delegation at Serangoon Stadium, meanwhile, exchanged ebullient hugs and took photos.
Asked what he thought contributed to the WP team's improved showing, Associate Professor Lim told The Straits Times that it boiled down to a mix of factors, including consistent interactions with residents and meeting their needs. 'Ultimately, it's what democracy is about – being responsive to the people who put their faith in us to want to work for them, and so perhaps that helped with our performance.'
The 2025 outcome suggests that Sengkang residents were little affected by the scandal that rocked the WP when former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan resigned from her party and her post in November 2021, after admitting to lying in Parliament.
It also will be fodder for any review of the PAP's strategy for how it can win back GRCs – Sengkang was the second GRC that the ruling party lost to the WP, after Aljunied in 2011.
The PAP team in Sengkang was considered to have had an outside chance of wresting the constituency back, given how Dr Lam – a former senior minister of state and a familiar face to residents after 14 years as an MP and five as a grassroots adviser – had stayed on to fight the battle. He was bolstered by a team of young professionals who mirrored the constituents' profile and have mainly been on the ground since 2021. Sengkang has a higher-than-average share of younger voters aged 21 to 45.
A key PAP argument during the nine-day hustings that the constituency – where nearly 85 per cent of residents live in Housing Board flats – was suffering from slipping standards of cleanliness and upkeep also failed to gain traction. At its only rally on May 1, the candidates cited residents' frustrations with unreliable lifts, multi-storey carparks in poor condition and pest infestations in the neighbourhood.
The incumbent WP MPs defended their track record, noting, for instance, that Sengkang Town Council had achieved the top banding for estate cleanliness and maintenance in the Ministry of National Development's town council management report.
During the hustings, they also touted their contributions in Parliament, with Ms He, Prof Lim and Mr Chua among the top 10 most active backbenchers during the 14th term.
'We have spoken up on matters that ring close to the hearts of the people of Sengkang,' Prof Lim said at an April 24 rally held in his ward of Anchorvale.
First-time voter and NUS undergraduate Wesley Tan, 25, who showed up in support of the team at Serangoon Stadium after polling closed, said: 'I'm proud of the Sengkang residents for this result.' He added that he has a good impression of the team, especially Prof Lim, as they are active on the ground.
On the campaign trail, the WP MPs pledged to be sensitive to the needs of young families, saying they will push for educational reform such as smaller class sizes and more childcare leave if re-elected.
The PAP had similarly focused on courting them, with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong promising when he visited the constituency on March 17 that the Government would do everything it can to support young parents.
He later returned to Sengkang to deliver a speech at the May 1 rally, urging voters to give the PAP team a second chance and to judge them on their character.
PAP's Dr Lam reiterated during the hustings that the PAP's candidates this time were younger and gender-balanced, with two working mothers in Mrs Giam and Ms Lai on the team.
The new line-up was the result of a post-mortem conducted after the defeat in 2020, when the party fielded an all-male slate led by labour chief and former Cabinet minister Ng Chee Meng.
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