Meeting and greeting the residents at Marine Terrace Market and Food Centre on Saturday morning (4 July), the Workers’ Party’s (WP) secretary-general Pritam Singh and chairman Sylvia Lim were received with enthusiasm.
Accompanying the WP Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency (GRC) five-member team, Mr Singh and Ms Lim caught the busy morning and brunch crowd as they gave out flyers, interacted and took pictures with the residents, as captured by TOC correspondents on site.
Mr Singh and Ms Lim will be contesting in Aljunied GRC where they have been the incumbent since the 2011 General Elections (GE). They will face the People’s Action Party (PAP); as would the WP’s Marine Parade GRC team
The five WP candidates being fielded in this GRC are leader Yee Jenn Jong, 55, Muhammad Fadli Bin Mohammed Fawzi, 39, Muhammad Azhar Bin Abdul Latip, 33, Nathaniel Koh Kim Kui, 36, and Ron Tan Jun Yen, 35. This will be the second time WP is contesting in Marine Parade GRC, where they met Goh Chok Tong-led PAP team in the last two elections.
The GE 2020 PAP team for Marine Parade GRC will consist of Tan Chuan-Jin, former Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong, FairPrice Group CEO Seah Kian Peng, and newcomers Dr Tan See Leng and Mr Fahmi Aliman.
A Marine Terrace resident noted to TOC that the WP received warm reception because they have been “working very hard since this morning” and had engaged in ground campaigning in Marine Parade GRC since last Saturday (27 June). This is in comparison to Dr Tan from PAP, who was the only contesting candidate from PAP’s team to visit Marine Terrace that morning, and his first time as well.
“I felt that PAP was not “putting in the effort for my vote,” the resident commented.
In a doorstop interview, Mr Tan from the WP stressed the point of how they would be a party which could serve the constituents better, as they said in the Nomination Day speech.
“The General Election is not dependent on just one person. There is only so much one person can do. If we get elected as members of parliament, we’re committed to serve the residents. It is a collective effort. We are bringing in all our expertises, and (you’ll have) five of us,” he assured.
In the same interview, Mr Singh was asked about his thoughts on the 10 million population issue that has recently risen. He began by saying that firstly it was “critical they all deal with objective information when it comes to public discourse”. He acknowledges that the population issue is a very “sensitive” one, but challenges transparency from PAP’s secretary-general Lee Hsien Loong to provide “more (information) for the public to understand what the government is thinking, what is its way forward, (because) that’ll be helpful,” he opined.
Edit: We apologise for the error of stating that WP had stood in Marina Parade for three times when it had contested twice. Once in GE2015 and this current general election.
