GE2025: PSP says it faces ‘uphill battle’ in West Coast-Jurong West GRC after Jurong voters added

SINGAPORE – The opposition Progress Singapore Party (PSP) faces “an uphill battle” in the new West Coast-Jurong West GRC at the next general election, said the party’s Non-Constituency MP Leong Mun Wai.

Speaking to the media on March 16 after the party’s first walkabout in Taman Jurong since the

latest electoral boundaries were announced,

Mr Leong said that “41,000 new residents are now being given to us. We have served the Telok Blangah residents very closely over the last four years, but they have taken them out”.

He was referring to changes to the electoral boundaries unveiled on March 11.

The new West Coast-Jurong West GRC

will include some estates from the current Jurong GRC, a stronghold of the ruling People’s Action Party, and cede parts of Telok Blangah and Dover.

Mr Leong added that the runway to the next election is “very short”, hence, the party has to gear up its interactions with Jurong residents who will now vote in the new GRC.

The election must be held by November, but is widely expected to take place by mid-2025.

He said PSP chairman Tan Cheng Bock has a strong record in the west of Singapore, and the party will do its “very best” in the run-up to the election to engage every resident.

Mr Leong and Dr Tan were part of the PSP slate that contested West Coast GRC in the 2020 election.

When asked about the PSP’s plans to engage Jurong residents, Dr Tan declined to go into detail, but said the party is “always prepared” and is “seeing a lot of people now coming to support us”.

The PSP turned out in force at the Taman Jurong walkabout on the morning of March 16.

Besides Mr Leong and Dr Tan, party chief Hazel Poa and about 50 volunteers spoke to residents and handed out the party newsletter at Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre.

The Electoral Boundaries Review Committee report on March 11 recommended that West Coast GRC absorb some estates from Jurong GRC and be renamed West Coast-Jurong West GRC in the coming general election.

It also recommended that West Coast GRC cede estates in HarbourFront and Sentosa to Radin Mas SMC, and Dover and Telok Blangah estates to Tanjong Pagar GRC.

The changes were triggered by the carving up of Jurong due to population changes farther north, the committee noted.

The new West Coast-Jurong West GRC will be a five-member constituency with 158,581 voters. This is up from the 144,516 voters that the current West Coast GRC had at the 2020 General Election, when it saw that election’s closest contest.

The ruling PAP won the GRC with 51.69 per cent of the vote against the then newly founded PSP led by Dr Tan, a former PAP stalwart.

Of the new voters in the GRC, about 41,000 are from Jurong West, specifically the wards of Taman Jurong and Jurong Spring.

Ms Poa, PSP’s secretary-general, said on March 16: “Now that these (voters) have been added, they have raised the bar. But we will rise to the occasion. And today’s walkabout shows that residents here are actually very warm (to us).”

Dr Tan added that he has a long history in Jurong, both as a medical doctor and a politician.

He said many of the residents recognised him from his time as a doctor in Ama Keng village, as they had resettled in Jurong from there.

He said he had also helped set up the Jurong East Town Council as a PAP MP.

“The whole area – it’s not new (to me),” he said.

Dr Tan said the party would put up a fight wherever it goes. “We fight because we’re all fighting for the country, for Singapore, and that’s most important,” he added.

“So wherever we go, we will still continue to give our best, and we will put our best candidates.”

He and the other party leaders did not confirm who would be fielded in the new GRC in the next election, or if the party would contest the new GRC, adding that the party will “leave our options open”.

In GE2020, PSP fielded Dr Tan, Mr Leong and Ms Poa, alongside Mr Jeffrey Khoo and Mr Nadarajah Loganathan, in West Coast GRC.

Mr Khoo and Mr Loganathan were at the walkabout as well, along with several of PSP’s new faces, including logistics firm director Anna Ravichandran, former journalist Stella Stan Lee and Mr Sumarleki Amjah, head of packaged food and business development at food and beverage company Del Monte Pacific.

Jurong GRC was the PAP’s best-performing GRC in the last two elections, where it secured 79.29 per cent of the vote in GE2015 and 74.61 per cent in GE2020.

Experts have said it is a fair assumption that Taman Jurong could provide very strong support to the PAP in the new West Coast-Jurong West GRC and affect the PSP’s prospects in the new constituency.

A key figure in Jurong GRC’s success was President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who served as an MP there for more than two decades. He represented Taman Jurong from 2001 to 2023 before stepping down to run for president.

Dr Tan said that the party expected some boundary changes, but not those of “this kind”.

“But whatever is presented to us, we will just have to take it,” he added.

Mr Leong said the party now has to work “a lot harder”.

Dr Tan also said the PSP will try to avoid three-cornered fights in the coming election by talking to other opposition parties.

Mr Leong said these meetings have yet to happen, but will “very soon”.

At present, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Finance Shawn Huang oversees Taman Jurong ward as part of Jurong GRC. He also represents Jurong Spring. Mr Huang was on March 16 spotted at a community event in the Taman Jurong Community Club, which is next to the market and food centre.

When approached and asked about the PSP’s entry into the area, he declined comment.