WP’s next challenge is to convince voters more alternative voices will help S’pore: Yee Jenn Jong

SINGAPORE – Campaign messaging for the Workers’ Party will get more challenging in future general elections, said former WP Non-Constituency MP (NCMP) Yee Jenn Jong.

The opposition party will need to judge whether Singaporeans can be persuaded that more alternative voices will strengthen the country, or whether voters feel that the WP holding 10 elected seats is good enough, said the four-time election candidate in a new book launched on June 3.

Some observers want the party to try to form the government – which means finding enough candidates to contest more than half the seats in Parliament, Yee said in the book, titled Step Up: The Workers’ Party Of Singapore 2.0, which he co-wrote with political analyst Loke Hoe Yeong.

This call may be easy to make, but the work required is immense, said Yee, who was an NCMP between 2011 and 2015.

“I believe the party would have wanted to contest at least one-third of the seats in GE2025, its medium-term goal being to deny the PAP the ability to amend the Constitution at will,” he wrote.

“That already proved difficult to achieve, with some potential candidates unable to contest this time round.”

At the May 2025 polls, the WP retained its 10 seats and won two NCMP seats for its largest-ever parliamentary contingent of 12 – but contested 26 of 97 seats. This was below its one-third goal that party chief Pritam Singh had set out in 2019.

A change of government, however, would take “cracks within the PAP itself”, and a very large share of voters perceiving the ruling party as having “bungled things up badly”, Yee said.

Yee, a former member of the WP’s central executive committee, launched the book at the Book Bar in Tanjong Pagar with a dialogue moderated by associate professor Walid Jumblatt Abdullah of Nanyang Technological University.

The book contains Yee’s analysis of the last election and his reflections on his over 14 years in electoral politics, interspersed with background and analysis from Loke, who also gives a brief history of the party and its leaders so far. Yee has also previously written about his election experiences in a book published in December 2020.

In his latest book, Yee said the WP is in a far better position now than when he joined just before the 2011 General Election, when former party chief Low Thia Khiang was its only elected MP.

Its MPs now have substantial parliamentary, town council management and grassroots organisation experience, and the party has “found a formula to continuously find” new talent, he added.

It can time the retirement of older MPs and introduce new blood, as it has done over the past two general elections, he noted.

Over the past few elections, more people with credentials matching those of PAP candidates have also run under the opposition banner, he said. “Should Singaporeans want a change of government, be it during Singh’s term as leader or thereafter, the party can scale up.”

“Working for Singapore” – the party’s 2025 campaign slogan – was conceived to remind voters that the WP is a serious political party willing to work with the Government when necessary, Yee said.

At GE2025, Yee led the party’s team contesting East Coast GRC and came away with 41.27 per cent of the vote. He had previously contested Marine Parade GRC in 2020 and 2015, and Joo Chiat SMC in 2011, where his 48.99 per cent of the vote earned him an NCMP seat in the House.

It is tough for the party’s leaders to gauge which issues truly matter to voters, he said; the rallying cry must be clear, and the campaign effectively built around that message.

Leaders who get this wrong risk poor results, and may face internal leadership challenges or step down to take responsibility, he added, citing results in other democracies.

“It must be simple to understand. Gauging the mood of the electorate is key – what issues will make them vote against an incumbent with a supermajority for six decades?”