SINGAPORE, July 11 — The Workers’ Party (WP) clinched Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) for the third time running today, with its best showing in the GRC so far.
It received 59.93 per cent of the vote against the People’s Action Party (PAP) team which got 40.07 per cent of the vote.
In total, the WP team received 85,603 votes in the constituency out of 142,847 valid votes, while their PAP opponents received 57,244.
The WP team featured incumbent Members of Parliament (MPs) for the GRC, Pritam Singh, 43, Sylvia Lim, 55, and Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap, 45.
It also included new additions Leon Perera, 49, and Gerald Giam, 42, who replaced Low Thia Khiang, 63, and Chen Show Mao, aged 59, who did not contest in this election.
Low, who was WP’s chief for 17 years, had led the Aljunied GRC team to a historic win in 2011. It was the first time the opposition had captured a GRC from the incumbent PAP. At that time, WP won with 54.72 per cent of the vote share.
Low also led the team to victory in 2015 — with a razor thin margin of 1.92 percentage points, winning 50.96 per cent of the vote — before handing over the reins of the party to Singh two years ago.
Both Perera and Giam had served as Non-Constituency MPs.
The PAP team was made up of Victor Lye, 58, Shamsul Kamar, 48, and Chua Eng Leong, 49, all of whom had contested in Aljunied GRC in GE2015.
Two new faces — Alex Yeo, 41 and Chan Hui Yuh, 44 — were also part of the PAP team.
In October last year, the High Court had found Low, Lim and Singh liable for damages suffered by the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC), which had sued them to claw back S$33.7 million of improper payments found by independent accountant firm KPMG.
All three involved have filed a notice to appeal the verdict.
In a newsletter distributed last week to residents of Aljunied GRC and Hougang Single Member Constituency, Singh had assured voters that the AHTC’s financial position is “healthy” and that the town council had accumulated a surplus of S$7.9 million, double the accumulated surplus when the party took over from the previous Aljunied Town Council in 2011.
Speaking to the media at WP’s headquarters along Geylang Road, Singh said that he was humbled that his party had managed to win both Aljunied GRC and Sengkang GRC, as well as Hougang Single Member Constituency (SMC).
WP clinched Sengkang GRC with a vote share of 52.13 per cent, and retained Hougang SMC with 61.19 per cent.
However, Singh said that he was not “feeling euphoric” about the wins, adding that there is a lot of work to do.
“I think we’ve got to work hard, we’ve got to keep our feet grounded. And this is something that I will be repeating to all the winning candidates through the course of tomorrow and the weeks that come, because there are a couple of things that need to be done,” he said.
“So I expect all the candidates from the WP who have done well in this election, even those who have not succeeded in becoming candidates, to represent Singapore and Singaporeans.
“I expect them to keep their feet firmly grounded and remember why they are doing what they are doing. And if you can move forward in that, wanting to speak up for Singaporeans in a rational, responsible way like how a credible opposition should, then I think we can make some progress.”
When asked about his thoughts on WP scoring close to 60 per cent of the vote share for Aljunied GRC, Singh said that he would rather focus on the 40 per cent of voters from the constituency that did not vote for his party.
“My commitment and promise to them is that I’ll continue to serve everyone in Aljunied equally and fairly. So if there is a concern you have, an issue you have, please come to talk to us. I think we should remember that this election is held in actually very difficult times,” said Singh.
“I don't think we’ve felt the full impact of the Covid-19 fallout yet. There are difficult months ahead and we’ll have to reach out to everybody if we want to come together as one united people.” — TODAY
