THE People's Action Party (PAP) team led by Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong will go up against the team from National Solidarity Party (NSP) led by veteran opposition and former Member of Parliament Cheo Chai Chen in Marine Parade GRC.
The rest of the PAP team comprises Seah Kian Peng, Fatimah Lateef and party newcomers Tin Pei Ling and Tan Chuan Jin.
NSP's Mr Cheo, a one-term MP for Nee Soon Central from 1991 until 1997 on the Singapore Democratic Party ticket, will be backed up by Ivan Yeo, Abdul Salim Harun, Spencer Ng and Nicole Seah.
In his speech to cheering supporters after nominations closed, SM Goh urged voters to vote for their futures, for a team they know can deliver. Marine Parade GRC has been led by him for the last 19 years.
The NSP team reminded voters that they had the power to demand more transparency and accountability on the part of the Government. Their youngest candidate Nicole Seah noted in her speech after nominations closed that they had been asked why they were standing in what is a PAP stronghold. The team's response to that, she said, was a reminder to voters that the ball was in their court.
In the run-up to Nomination Day, the young women candidates from these two teams made newspaper headlines for their youth. Ms Tin, at 27, is the PAP's youngest candidate, and NSP's Ms Seah is 24.
Ms Tin, who has logged some years of grassroots work in Ulu Pandan, had a rough introduction to the electorate; younger voters, in particular, went online and ragged her about her youth and her image. They asked if she could relate to older voters and also alluded to her husband Ng How Yue's position as principal private secretary to Mr Lee opening doors for her to enter politics.
Speaking at the recent PAP party rally, she acknowledged the 'storm of online criticism' that has surfaced, saying she would take the valid ones 'seriously and humbly', and recounted her own experience having to take over the running of her family's coffeeshop when her father was suddenly taken ill in 2005.
Ms Seah made the news for amassing more than 20,000 fans on her Facebook page in six days. Speaking for her generation before nominations opened at Tao Nan School this morning, she said: 'This is a very exciting time for an election. With the rise of the new media a lot of people are expressing views that they have not expressed before.'
Speaking to reporters later, she acknowledged the power of Facebook to disseminate information and get the troops all fired up, but added that ground support still counted; some people still do not use the Internet.
Responding to comments about her youth and inexperience, she said: 'Politics is not about a certain type of person. It's not about a certain breed of people. It is a representation of the different voices we have in society... But even with younger Singaporeans, we have our own issues we have our own areas of concern. I think that this is where I can step in. ... So I do not see age as a liability in politics.'
On comparisons between her and her counterpart Tin Pei Ling on the PAP team, she said: 'There is really no need for comparison. This is an issue of little importance. We have more pressing national issues to face at hand. So let us focus on that instead.'
Read the full report in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.
