GE2025: PAP’s campaign in Sengkang GRC about showing commitment to the community, says Lam Pin Min

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SINGAPORE - Over the past eight days of election campaigning, visiting MRT stations and coffee shops and knocking on countless doors, the PAP’s message to Sengkang GRC voters is one of commitment, said former senior minister of state Lam Pin Min.

Hoping to wrest the four-member constituency from the opposition WP, which won by a four-point margin in 2020, Dr Lam, who is leading a team of political newcomers, said his team’s campaign this time is not just about winning votes.

“It’s about standing up for what we believe in, showing our commitment to the community, and staying true to our values,” the 55-year-old told The Straits Times.

The ophthalmologist, who is the only candidate retained from the ruling party’s previous slate, said the past eight days have been “intense and fulfilling”.

It is a sentiment echoed by his PAP teammates, who spoke with ST on the campaign trail.

Dr Elmie Nekmat, 43, said that regardless of the election’s outcome, he hopes that he has helped residents in Sengkang Central through his efforts over the past four years.

“Even up to this point, it’s really not about winning or losing the election... It’s about the cause,” he added.

Dr Elmie, who teaches communications and new media at the National University of Singapore, said he wants to push for policies to protect seniors and children against online harms, like scams and internet addiction.

Residents have repeatedly voiced their concerns over online safety, which hit close to home when his 72-year-old father was nearly scammed.

Dr Elmie said he was not interested in joining politics initially, but was eventually convinced that doing so could help others on a wider level.

He started helping out at Meet-the-People Sessions in 2016, and after the PAP lost Sengkang GRC in 2020, senior members of the party asked him to chair the PAP branch in Sengkang Central.

Since taking on the role in 2022, the father of four daughters said he has visited homes weekly, written letters to students receiving Edusave awards by hand, and that his team of volunteers grew from fewer than 20 to about a hundred.

“It’s about putting in the hours, the time, the sweat, and that makes a difference,” he said, attributing this trait to the nights he spent studying alone at the void deck as a private A-level candidate after flunking the exams in junior college.

His teammate, Ms Theodora Lai, 39, said that since she started walking the ground in Sengkang in 2021, people have been telling her how difficult it will be for the PAP to win Sengkang.

“That does not dissuade me,” she said.

“Whatever the outcome, I will give it my best... It will be a tough contest for us. But that is not a reason for us to hold back in what we’re doing.”

The mother of a four-year-old daughter and six-month-old son, Ms Lai said she was shaped by her experiences following her own mother to volunteer at old folks’ homes when she was younger.

After graduating from university with an economics degree in 2009, she found a chance to serve the community as a case writer at Meet-the-People Sessions in Aljunied GRC and later in the then Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC.

Appointed as the PAP’s branch chair in Sengkang North in 2022 and later the grassroots adviser for the area in 2024, Ms Lai said she has been able to build deeper relationships with her residents.

“I feel even more determined... to represent them and make their lives better,” she added.

A co-founder of a deep-tech venture capital firm, Ms Lai said she has tapped her private-sector experience to kick-start various community initiatives in Sengkang, including partnering with Sengkang General Hospital to set up community health posts – which are points where residents can access health services in their neighbourhoods.

Ms Lai noted that there are still grouses among residents about connectivity and infrastructure in Sengkang. “Not to discount the efforts by the incumbent MPs, but these issues still remain,” she said.

Other causes she aims to champion include greater financial support for families in the “sandwich generation”. She also hopes to push for young Singaporeans to gain more exposure to different experiences, whether it is learning new skills or going abroad.

Even if the PAP does not win, she said: “I have already served Sengkang for many years prior to this, and I don’t think that will change.”

The slate, capped off by food and beverage group entrepreneur Bernadette Giam, will face the WP’s team comprising political newbie Abdul Muhaimin and incumbent MPs He Ting Ru, Louis Chua and Jamus Lim.