GE2025: SPP optimistic about chances in Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, after PAP’s Ng Eng Hen retirement from politics

In the 2020 election, Mr Chia led his SPP team at the GRC against Dr Ng’s team, garnering 32.77 per cent of the vote. 

This election, he will be up against a PAP team led by Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat. Mr Saktiandi Supaat and two new faces, charity director Elysa Chen, and social entrepreneur Cai Yinzhou, round out the four-member slate. 

Mr Chia will lead a slate of two new faces: Mr Muhammad Norhakim, an operations executive, and Mr Lim Rui Xian, who is self-employed.

He did not reveal the fourth member, but hinted that it would likely be either party chairman Melvyn Chiu or treasurer Williiamson Lee – both of whom had contested alongside him in the last election. 

Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC has 98,505 registered electors. It is one of five GRCs to keep its electoral boundaries in the recent Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) report.

“We think there’s a better chance or equal chance,” said Mr Chia. 

However, he acknowledged that for most opposition parties, defeating the incumbent remains an uphill battle. 

“I think that the chances for all opposition parties is an uphill task, its not easy,” he said. 

He said that in his view, the “only party” that has a “very good chance” is the Workers’ Party. 

“I am rooting for this Workers’ Party, and I think that they have a very good chance of winning another GRC this time,” he said. 

“The other parties, we are basically making sure that the PAP MPs are accountable for their policies,” he added.

This will be Mr Chia’s sixth time standing in a General Election. He was a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament from 2001 to 2006 – landing the seat after he contested Chua Chu Kang SMC under the Singapore Democratic Alliance’s banner.