GE2025: Seize chance to vote for most promising batch of WP candidates, says Sylvia Lim

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SINGAPORE - The current slate of WP general election candidates is the most promising batch the party has fielded thus far, said party chair Sylvia Lim as she urged Singaporeans not to miss the chance to vote for them.

If the candidates do not get elected, there may not be a next time as the electoral boundaries may change, she added.

“So there is no time to waste on this. Let us not dither about whether to cast your vote for WP this time or not. If you do not do it this time, you may not have a chance the next time,” she said.

Ms Lim was speaking on April 28 at the party’s third rally, held at Yusof Ishak Secondary School.

The WP has fielded 26 candidates in Aljunied, Sengkang, Punggol, Tampines and East Coast GRCs and Hougang, Jalan Kayu and Tampines Changkat SMCs. They include lawyers, entrepreneurs, a psychologist and a former diplomat, among others.

Devoting much of her speech to the women candidates, Ms Lim said being in the opposition camp was a high-stakes and high-risk activity, especially for women.

Once elected into Parliament, women candidates were expected to confront ministers robustly, but not too aggressively, she said, noting that she had been called many names and had also been “fiercely attacked by some ministers”.

Yet, Singapore needs female political leaders in Parliament, especially in the opposition, to ensure that policies are more balanced and sustainable, she said.

To this end, the WP is fielding six women this time round – Ms Alia Mattar, Ms Alexis Dang, Ms Eileen Chong, Ms Paris V. Parameswari, Ms He Ting Ru and Ms Lim herself, she added.

“Looking at the slate of female candidates this GE, all I can say is, ‘mama bear here is proud’,” said Ms Lim, who is WP chair, to cheers and laughter from the crowd.

More than their credentials, though, WP MPs can reject government policies that they feel are not in the interest of Singaporeans, unlike PAP MPs, she said.

It was a point that Associate Professor Jamus Lim also brought up.

The Sengkang GRC candidate said the ruling PAP had “manufactured” problems for Singapore through various policies, such as pricing land used for HDB flats at market value and hiking the goods and services tax amid inflation, that have increased the cost of living.

“The decades and decades of parliamentary supermajority that the PAP has enjoyed has bred policy complacency, intellectual stagnation and unimaginative thinking. This is no longer your father’s and my grandfather’s PAP,” he said.

Other WP MPs cited examples of how the PAP had continued to insist on its own way, to Singapore’s detriment.

Ms Alia, who is on

the WP’s Punggol slate,

took aim at the Government’s preferred practice of addressing tricky issues “behind closed doors”, asserting that such discussions should be had in the open.

“We keep hearing the term ‘behind closed doors’, that heated debates and discussions had already taken place behind closed doors, that some people have friends in higher places where they can ask for special help, even for national programmes, apparently,” she said.

Calling for the practice to end, she said: “This is our nation. We are the stakeholders. Involve us in the decisions, especially when they are taken in our name and on our behalf.”

Meanwhile, Mr Andre Low, who is

up against PAP’s Ng Chee Meng at Jalan Kayu SMC,

said he had no doubt his opponent is “a good man”, but what Mr Ng represents is a party that has allowed issues such as the high cost of living and high housing prices to fester.

In contrast, said Prof Lim, WP MPs will bring new perspectives and innovative policy proposals to Parliament, and have done so.

Urging Singaporeans not to “blindly unite” in voting for the PAP, Prof Lim added: “The PAP dismisses our arguments, calling them theoretical or irrelevant. But 10 or 20 years later, they show up in government policies.

“Let us be your voices that the Government can no longer choose to ignore.”