East Coast GRC absorbs Joo Chiat ward, Chai Chee areas from Marine Parade GRC
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East Coast GRC will absorb all of Joo Chiat ward. It includes the Telok Kurau and Opera Estate (left) landed enclaves, as well as the HDB estates in Chai Chee (right) under the Kembangan-Chai Chee ward.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
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SINGAPORE – Voter numbers in East Coast GRC will get a 25 per cent bump after absorbing the Housing Board estates in Chai Chee and Joo Chiat ward, which are part of Marine Parade GRC.
With the addition of the 40,675 voters from Marine Parade GRC, East Coast GRC will have 150,691 voters – up from 120,239 voters in the 2020 General Election.
This will make it the fourth-largest five-member GRC in the 2025 polls, behind Ang Mo Kio, West Coast-Jurong West and Nee Soon – a major change from its status as the smallest five-person GRC in 2020.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat helmed East Coast GRC at the 2020 General Election, in which his People’s Action Party team locked horns with the Workers’ Party (WP) and secured 53.39 per cent of the vote, making it the second-worst performing GRC won by the ruling party.
The latest boundary changes were outlined in the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee report released on March 11.
East Coast GRC will absorb all of Joo Chiat ward, which is overseen by Culture, Community and Youth Minister Edwin Tong.
In a Facebook post, Mr Tong said he remains committed to serving his residents in Joo Chiat.
“I look forward to working with the East Coast team to build a strong and vibrant community in the East,” he added.
The GRC will also take in the HDB estates in Chai Chee under the Kembangan-Chai Chee ward that former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin helmed before his resignation in 2023 after an extramarital affair.
A chunk of voters from Siglap ward that came under East Coast GRC will now become part of the newly formed four-member Pasir Ris-Changi GRC.
The 12,871 voters were carved out of largely private residential areas in the easternmost part of the GRC, where the Changi Prison Complex, Changi Airport and the Salvation Army’s Changi Corps are located.
The area was under Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Maliki Osman.
Another chunk of East Coast that has been carved out is a parcel bordering Aljunied GRC and Tampines GRC, which will form part of Tampines Changkat SMC. The area came from Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information, and National Development Tan Kiat How’s Kampung Chai Chee ward.
The largely industrial area has just one registered voter and is home to Safra Tampines and the upcoming United Medicare Residence (Tampines West) nursing home.
A public housing development is set to be completed in the area in 2025. The Tampines GreenOpal project will comprise eight blocks, with 1,070 units in total.
The four MPs with DPM Heng in East Coast GRC are Dr Maliki, Mr Tan, Ms Jessica Tan and Ms Cheryl Chan.
They are expected to face the WP again, which has contested the group representation constituency since the 2006 polls.
In the 2020 General Election, East Coast marked the narrowest defeat for the WP in a GRC,
Asked for comment on the changes, DPM Heng said his team welcomes residents from Chai Chee and Siglap to East Coast, and looks forward to meeting and serving them.
On whether Mr Tong will contest under the East Coast banner in the next election, DPM Heng would only say that his team will study the changes carefully and assess the implications to their work.
“More importantly, our residents remain our priority. What doesn’t change is our commitment to serve our residents in East Coast GRC to the best of our ability, which we have been doing through the years,” he added.
In a statement, the WP noted the significant changes to the areas it has been walking consistently for the last few years and said it would reveal the likely constituencies it will contest in due course.
Joo Chiat residents said they were used to boundary changes but did not see the absorption into East Coast coming.
Expressing his surprise, Mr Soh, a 62-year-old retiree who has lived in a private apartment near Still Road since 2001, said he did not expect Joo Chiat to return to East Coast GRC, where it belonged before being carved out to form a single seat in 2001.
The single-member constituency was absorbed into Marine Parade GRC in 2015.
Mr Soh said he will now watch out for how the PAP’s East Coast Plan would apply to him.
“DPM Heng announced quite a few things, right?” he said, referencing the anchor minister’s slew of announcements on Jan 25
Mr Soh added that he is familiar with the WP walking his area, having bumped into its party members several times since 2020.
Wong Pei Ting is a correspondent at The Straits Times. She covers politics and social affairs.
