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Tag: Fengshan SMC

  • No Surprises In Workers’ Party Line-Up For 10 Battlegrounds

    No Surprises In Workers’ Party Line-Up For 10 Battlegrounds

    A snapshot of the Workers’ Party (WP) line-ups in its 10 battlegrounds at the Sept 11 polls has emerged on Nomination Day, with the party pulling no surprises yet.

    WP chief Low Thia Khiang, 58, chairman Sylvia Lim, 50, lawyer Pritam Singh, 39, and full-MPs Chen Show Mao, 54, and Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap, 40, are set to be defending the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

    The quintet have arrived on Tuesday (Sept 1) morning at the Raffles Institution, the nomination centre for the five-member constituency, along with Mr Koh Choong Yong, 42, a software engineer. He is likely again contesting the Sengkang West single-member constituency (SMC) like he did at the 2011 polls.

    The WP’s Nee Soon GRC team will comprise: Singapore Cancer Society manager Kenneth Foo Seck Guan, 38, managing partner of private investment business Luke Koh, 41, lawyer Gurmit Singh, 55, and sales consultant Cheryl Denise Loh, 31. They have arrived at the nomination centre at Yishun Primary School.

    Non-Constituency MP Yee Jenn Jong, 50, lawyer Terence Tan, 44, lawyer He Ting Ru, 32, bank wealth manager Dylan Ng, 40, and chocolate factory owner Firuz Khan, 48, could be contesting the Marine Parade GRC and have arrived at the Kong Hwa School.

    Funeral services company executive Bernard Chen, 29, is set to be fielded in MacPherson SMC and is also at the same nomination centre.

    The four potential WP candidates for the resurrected Jalan Besar GRC, medical social worker Frieda Chan Sio Phing, 39, polytechnic lecturer L. Somasundaram, 52, engineer Redzwan Hafidz Abdul Razak, 30, and businessman Adrian Sim Tian Hock, 43, have arrived at Bendemeer Primary School.

    NCMP Gerald Giam, 37, National University of Singapore sociology professor Daniel Goh, 42; consultancy firm CEO Leon Perera, 44; former associate librarian Mohamed Fairoz Shariff, 36; shipping law firm partner Dennis Tan, 45, were at the Aljunied Town Council office in Kaki Bukit and have boarded a bus set for Fengshan Primary School.

    It is the nomination centre for the East Coast GRC and Fengshan SMC. Mr Tan is likely to stand in the SMC as his team has split up with that of the other four WP candidates.

    Also at the same nomination centre was Punggol East MP Lee Li Lian, 37, who will be defending the constituency she won in a 2013 by-election.

    Hougang MP Png Eng Huat, 53, has also arrived at Poi Ching school, the nomination centre for the SMC that he won in a 2012 by-election.

    Hougang is the stronghold of the WP, held by Mr Low from 1991 till he left in 2011 and won the first GRC for the opposition.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • WP’s Sylvia Lim Dismisses Talk Of Competing In Fengshan SMC

    WP’s Sylvia Lim Dismisses Talk Of Competing In Fengshan SMC

    Workers’ Party (WP) chairman Sylvia Lim will likely stay put to defend her seat in Aljunied GRC at the next election, party sources said yesterday, dismissing speculation that she is being sent out to boost WP’s chances in a different ward.

    Talk of such a move spiked after WP chief Low Thia Khiang refused to say if his Aljunied team will remain unchanged for the polls and Ms Lim posted a photo of herself eating at Fengshan Market and Food Centre online. The photo, the first in her newly set up Instagram account, was accompanied by the caption “the taste of Fengshan – heavenly” and a cryptic hashtag “#reasonstowin”.

    Party insiders, however, were quick to pour cold water on the idea, telling The Straits Times that internal chatter pointed to the Aljunied GRC team remaining unchanged. A party member said Mr Low wants to keep the current Aljunied team intact to “entrench the opposition vote in Aljunied GRC”. Mr Low himself has said he will definitely be standing in the constituency.

    Political observers also agreed that moving Ms Lim to the newly created Fengshan single-seat ward did not make sense.

    It would open up the party to accusations that it is taking Aljunied GRC for granted, raise questions about why the chairman of an embattled town council was abandoning it, and suggest a demotion for a senior party leader.

    Said political scientist Derek da Cunha: “Ms Lim eating at a hawker centre at Fengshan could simply be a smokescreen. Moving out of Aljunied only makes sense if Ms Lim, given her relatively high profile nationally, were to helm a WP GRC team.”

    Fengshan SMC is one of the five GRCs and five single-seat wards that WP wants to contest in the next polls. It was carved out of East Coast GRC, where WP polled 45.17 per cent of valid votes in 2011.

    At the same time, observers did not want to completely discount the possibility that WP is plotting a surprise move. Institute of Policy Studies senior research fellow Gillian Koh said: “While Mr Low is saying that he is going to hold fort in Aljunied GRC, if the party does wish to extend its reach, it will have to send its other top gun out.”

    Dr Koh added that if Ms Lim does make the move, where she ends up will depend on “whether the WP is ambitious in wanting to make a serious bid for East Coast GRC… or it is a little more modest and places its chairman in a single seat”.

    Similarly, Dr da Cunha said WP could calculate that it can hold Aljunied even without Ms Lim on the slate there, since Ms Lim’s Serangoon division drew the highest vote for WP in all five Aljunied divisions.

    Former Nominated MP Zulkifli Baharudin said WP would probably have to weigh the options of having Ms Lim “stay and solve the issues in the safe seat” and of letting her helm another GRC but face the potential of losing.

    Ms Lim is the chairman of the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council, which is currently sorting out finance and governance issues after the Auditor-General’s Office found lapses in these areas in a year-long audit.

    “Certainly the issue complicates things for them, otherwise it would be quite obvious that they should spread out their best candidates instead of putting them all in the same place,” said Mr Zulkifli.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • Workers’ Party Visits East Coast GRC And Fengshan SMC

    Workers’ Party Visits East Coast GRC And Fengshan SMC

    The likely Workers’ Party (WP) candidates for East Coast GRC and Fengshan SMC made their first public appearance together yesterday, visiting major markets there to meet stallholders and residents.

    Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Gerald Giam, 37, who was part of the WP’s East Coast team, which garnered 45.2 per cent of the vote in the 2011 General Election, is almost certain to enter the fray once again in the constituency.

    He was joined yesterday by other potential candidates: National University of Singapore associate professor and sociologist Daniel Goh, 42; law firm partner Dennis Tan, 44; research and consultancy firm chief executive and former civil servant Leon Perera, 44; and librarian Mohamed Fairoz Shariff, 36.

    East Coast GRC was a five-MP constituency at the last general election, but will be a four-MP constituency at the next one. This means three of the four new faces could be Mr Giam’s running mates, while one might go it alone in Fengshan SMC.

    Also at the walkabout were WP chief Low Thia Khiang, 58, Aljunied GRC MPs Sylvia Lim, 50, Chen Show Mao, 54, and Faisal Abdul Manap, 40, and Hougang MP Png Eng Huat, 53.

    Non-Constituency MP Yee Jenn Jong, 50, who is expected to lead the WP team in Marine Parade GRC, was there too, with potential candidate Terence Tan, 43, a lawyer who has been doing house visits.

    The GRC will absorb Joo Chiat SMC, where Mr Yee stood in 2011 and lost by 388 votes to Mr Charles Chong of the People’s Action Party.

    The WP has been walking the ground daily in recent weeks, with the elections expected next month.

    It said it has not finalised its candidates or where they will stand.

    Speaking to reporters after yesterday’s walkabout, WP chairman Sylvia Lim said the party will formally introduce its candidates after National Day.

    The party said it will also contest Jalan Besar and Nee Soon GRCs, as well as Sengkang West and MacPherson SMCs.

    Last night, the WP held a Hari Raya dinner in Aljunied GRC’s Kaki Bukit ward, attended by party leaders – and the man who stepped down last week from his post as chairman of the PAP branch in the ward, Mr Kahar Hassan, 45.

    Mr Kahar said Mr Faisal had invited him to the dinner “some time back”, and he was there in his personal capacity.

    When asked by reporters if he had joined the WP, Mr Kahar said: “That will never happen – I’ve been a (PAP) member for 20 years. I was invited to this dinner a long time ago.”

    Mr Faisal told reporters that he invited Mr Kahar to the dinner because they both serve residents in the area.

    “We have a working relationship… sometimes I refer residents to him, and sometimes he refers residents to me,” he said.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com