THIN MARGINS
Jalan Kayu SMC, which was a showdown between WP’s newcomer Andre Low and the People’s Action Party’s Ng Chee Meng, turned out to be the tightest contest of GE2025.
The 56-year-old Mr Ng, who was running in his third General Election, clinched 14,113 votes while Mr Low, a former lawyer, took 13,307 votes in the newly formed constituency.
In an address to WP supporters at Serangoon Stadium after the results were announced, Mr Low said that while the outcome was “not what we hoped for”, he respected it as part of the “democratic process that is at the heart of our nation”.
The race for Jalan Kayu had gained a lot of attention as it reignited a debate around Mr Ng’s handling of the aborted deal between Income Insurance and German insurer Allianz. Mr Ng is secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), which owns Income.
The contest grabbed headlines for a very different reason late into the hustings, when some of Mr Low’s vulgarity-laden Telegram messages were leaked, which led to him issuing an apology.
The second-thinnest margin of the night was in Tampines GRC, despite it being a four-way race and the WP’s first time contesting the constituency.
At the end of the night, the PAP team led by Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli came out victorious with 52.02 per cent of the vote, while WP achieved 47.37 per cent.
The People’s Power Party (PPP) and National Solidarity Party (NSP), which also ran, earned only 0.43 per cent and 0.18 per cent respectively.
Mr Faisal Manap, who led the WP’s Tampines team, told supporters at Serangoon Stadium in Malay that their belief had helped his team to “compete with all their heart”.
He thanked voters for all their support and their prayers throughout the campaign. He also conveyed his congratulations to the PAP team and said he hoped that its leader, Mr Masagos, who is also Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs, would become an even better MP going forward.
Mr Faisal’s outing in Tampines GRC was a surprise – the former Aljunied GRC MP made it known only on Nomination Day that he was leading a five-member team to contest the constituency.
Some netizens quickly framed the contest as a showdown between two Malay-Muslim leaders, which Mr Faisal addressed by saying that he did not see himself as going up against Mr Masagos, but rather as being the minority candidate of the team.
Mr Singh also said that while Mr Faisal is a representative of the Malay-Muslim community, neither he nor any of the other WP candidates would represent only their communities.
The race for Tampines also drew much attention as the authorities warned about foreign interference in the election, following several Facebook posts that mixed religion and politics and called on Muslim voters to support Mr Faisal.
The WP spoke out against the interference after the authorities raised the issue, with Mr Singh saying the party cannot be a successful political party if it “plays the race and religion card”.
