GE2025: Power breakfasts, secret switches and first salvos – let the hustings begin

Follow our live coverage here.

SINGAPORE – The 14th general election of independent Singapore officially got under way on an intermittently rainy but otherwise nondescript morning on April 23, setting the stage for a flurry of political activity that the 60-year-old island state is unused to.

Outside the nine nomination centres – where the finalised slates of candidates would be confirmed by noon – suited office-goers continued their morning commutes; cleaners kept up their day-to-day duties; an uncle rolled up the shutters at his neighbourhood store in Hougang with minimum fuss.

Yet beneath this calm veneer was an undercurrent of electric restlessness. An unusual number of people were instinctively refreshing their phones. Belying Singapore’s reputational reticence, there was open chatter about politics in hawker centres. Not to mention decked-out supporters beginning to chant in processional indecorum at 9am.

But this is to get ahead of proceedings: It all, as with the best days, began with breakfast, on this occasion a morning ritual transmuted into a blunt instrument for a show of force. There were no rules against candidates going to the centres themselves and meeting up with colleagues there, but understatedness is not for veteran politicians and parties; critical mass is what is called for in a public exercise where optics are necessarily the name of the game. 

At shopping mall Link@896 in Dunearn Road, a throng of PAP supporters congregated in a holding room that had drinks and snacks prepared – a common theme everywhere with the ruling party’s busloads of grassroots volunteers and supporters transported to centres.

The PSP’s supporters ended up cheek by jowl queueing for “a cup of joe” – PSP candidate Lawrence Pek’s Americanism for coffee – with those from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) at the same coffee shop near Jurong Pioneer Junior College.

The WP, as has been its modus operandi, was more clandestine, with even this routine bread-breaking largely taking place behind closed doors. From 7.30am, blue-clad volunteers and members began gathering at the party’s Aljunied-Hougang Town Council office in Hougang Avenue 2 – its traditional flag-off point for the hustings.

This cloak-and-dagger operation would continue until the eleventh hour. Even at 9.40am, its rumoured candidate and long-time central executive committee member Tan Kong Soon would tease a Straits Times reporter: “See you at Yusof Ishak (Secondary School).”

An hour later, he was striding into Deyi Secondary in Ang Mo Kio – a red herring for actual candidate Andre Low,

the unexpected pick for a straight contest against the PAP’s Mr Ng Chee Meng

in Jalan Kayu SMC.

By noon, the headlines were confirmed – the PAP’s last-minute gambit to relocate its Chua Chu Kang GRC anchor,

Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, to protect Punggol GRC,

a ploy kept secret even from the PAP team; the

WP’s abandonment of Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC

, resulting in the first walkover in a general election since 2011, causing some disquiet among other opposition parties; and the four-way showdown in Tampines GRC, where the WP had chosen to throw some of its brightest new faces behind a team led by vice-chairman Faisal Manap.

But there were the potential moments for virality too, after the generally mediocre singing the public has been subjected to for weeks by candidates.

To whoops of delight, the PAP’s Sengkang GRC candidate Bernadette Giam made the extra effort to deliver parts of her speech in Tamil. On the balcony of Poi Ching School, Mr Goh Meng Seng of the People’s Power Party repeatedly emerged to survey the crowd, hands in pockets in almost louche judgment, now and then shaking his head at a conspicuously unfriendly audience.

And what is an election without its first salvo?

A keyed-up PSP chief Leong Mun Wai threw down the gauntlet to his PAP opponents in West Coast-Jurong West GRC for a policy debate.

More muted, PSP chairman Tan Cheng Bock leant on his age where others might have demurred. He put down the PAP team as “quite young”, adding for good measure: “I’m not too sure whether they are as knowledgeable about the constituency as us because we (have been) there for a pretty long time.”

After that, it was straight off to the races, though the rumour mill has it that the WP’s Punggol GRC team might have found time for a quick rest and shower. The PAP teams in Tampines and East Coast GRCs launched their constituency-specific manifestos via press conferences, while the PAP’s Sembawang West SMC candidate Poh Li San and Sembawang GRC anchor minister Ong Ye Kung embarked immediately on house visits.

The latter found some time for levity.

“One down, 166 more to go,” he was heard saying as he adjusted a knee brace after completing visits to a block of flats in Canberra. Reporting on an interaction with a resident to an ST reporter, he said good-naturedly: “She said Inshallah (God willing in Arabic)... means that’s a 70 per cent chance she’ll vote for us.”

In Bukit Panjang SMC, both PAP incumbent Liang Eng Hwa and SDP chairman Paul Tambyah initiated their war of attrition, an individual face-off in the heartland of Fajar.

The WP zeroed in on bus interchanges and MRT stations for maximum exposure, with its personable Tampines GRC candidate Eileen Chong reaching out to residents and Punggol GRC candidates Harpreet Singh Nehal and Alexis Dang also proving popular. 

For the political parties, this is in some ways still the calm before the storm, with physical rallies to return after the relative quiet of the previous Covid-19 general election. Those stretched for resources must feel that the next nine days are both too short and too long.

Political observers in the coming days will parse candidates’ phrases. Residents will scrutinise the minutiae of their manner, perhaps seeing shadows where there are none. No one can be certain of the considerations that go into a vote.

All these unknowns, however, will have to wait. For now, let the hustings begin.