Singapore GE: Stage set for intense battle in East Coast GRC between PAP and WP

East Coast GRC is shaping up to be the possible site of an intense contest between the incumbent People's Action Party (PAP) and opposition Workers' Party (WP), observers say, after changes to electoral boundaries were announced yesterday.

Fengshan SMC will now return to East Coast GRC, which will become a new five-member group representation constituency with 120,239 voters.

In the 2015 General Election, Fengshan was carved out from East Coast GRC, and both constituencies saw close contests between the PAP and the WP.

The PAP retained East Coast with 60.7 per cent of the total votes, and it was its worst-performing GRC in the 2015 election.

In Fengshan, PAP backbencher Cheryl Chan fended off a challenge from WP candidate Dennis Tan, winning 57.5 per cent of the votes.

Three of the WP's Non-Constituency MPs (NCMPs) - Associate Professor Daniel Goh, Mr Leon Perera and Mr Tan - qualified for their NCMP seats by contesting in East Coast and Fengshan, meaning that they would be familiar faces to voters if they were to stand there again.

NCMP seats are offered to the best-performing losing opposition candidates when the number of elected opposition MPs falls short of the minimum. The number will be 12 in the next election.

Observers will watch closely which candidates the PAP will field in East Coast GRC, as two of the four MPs there, Mr Lim Swee Say and Mr Lee Yi Shyan, are widely expected to step down.

The two other PAP MPs there are Senior Minister of State for Defence and Foreign Affairs Maliki Osman and backbencher Jessica Tan.

"We must remember in East Coast, there were no new faces in the last GE, which in a way recognises the threat posed by the WP... The WP's second-best team has traditionally been fielded there," said law don Eugene Tan, a former Nominated MP.

Former PAP MP Inderjit Singh said it would be interesting to watch which "heavyweight minister" would be dispatched to lead East Coast GRC.

He noted that the constituency has "historically been quite shaky" for the PAP. "This could be a function of the WP spending a lot of resources on the ground. It is also next to Aljunied GRC," he added.

Asked about the changes, Dr Maliki said both Fengshan and East Coast constituencies have been working closely with each other in the past five years under the same town council.

"I welcome Fengshan back to the East Coast GRC team. We see this as a continuation of our work to serve our residents well and meet their needs, moving forward."