SINGAPORE - The People's Action Party (PAP) candidate who twice lost in election bids in the Hougang single-seat ward appears unlikely to contest there for a third time.

This is because Mr Desmond Choo, 36, has been named as the second adviser to grassroots organisations in Tampines East, a ward in Tampines GRC, on Wednesday. Its MP is former National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, 66.

His move as second adviser in Tampines East was announced in a People's Association (PA) statement on Thursday on the appointment of long-serving grassroots leader Goh Chee Koh, 69, as the new adviser in Hougang, succeeding Mr Choo.

Mr Goh, who served as a grassroots volunteer in Punggol for 40 years, including as Punggol Central Citizen's Consultative Committee chairman, took over in Hougang on Tuesday.

The statement also said that gynaecologist and grassroots leader Kee Wei Heong, 64, took over on Thursday as grassroots adviser in Aljunied GRC's Kaki Bukit ward. An active grassroots leader since 1992, Dr Kee has been chairman of the Bukit Gombak Citizen's Consultative Committee since 2003.

He succeeds Mr Ong Ye Kung, 44, who was part of the five-man PAP team that lost to the Workers' Party (WP) in Aljunied GRC in the 2011 polls.

Mr Ong, director of Ocean Minerals Singapore, a subsidiary of Keppel Corp, and who served as adviser in Kaki Bukit for over three years, said in July that he had moved to Sembawang GRC.

Mr Ong and Mr Choo remain chairmen of the PAP Kaki Bukit and Hougang branches respectively, though sources expect them to hand over these posts.

Mr Choo, a senior vice-president at venture capital firm Kestrel Capital, lost twice at the polls: in 2011 to the WP's Yaw Shin Leong and to the WP's Png Eng Huat in the 2012 by-election called after the party sacked Mr Yaw for refusing to account to it for an alleged extramarital affair.