GE2015: PAP garners 77.7% of vote share in Tanjong Pagar GRC

(SINGAPORE) The People's Action Party has kept its hold of Tanjong Pagar GRC, beating the Singaporeans First Party with a strong 77.71 per cent of the vote.

PAP team leader Chan Chun Sing - Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and labour chief - pledged that he and his teammates would "build on the strong foundations" laid by their forefathers.

It was the first electoral contest in the constituency in close to 30 years - Tanjong Pagar residents last voted in 1988 when the ward was still a single-member constituency. It then expanded into a GRC in 1991, since which the PAP has had election walkovers. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had been the ward's MP since 1955 - and subsequently the GRC's anchor - until his passing in March this year.

The other members of the PAP team are Senior Minister of State Indranee Rajah, surgeon Chia Shi-Lu, former senior police officer Melvin Yong and social worker Joan Pereira.

Their SingFirst rivals that had sought to "create history" comprised investment adviser and ex-senior civil servant Tan Jee Say, psychiatrist Ang Yong Guan, market risks manager Chirag Desai, communications consultant Fahmi Rais and sales executive Melvyn Chiu.

Noting the "substantial national swing towards the ruling party" in the results announced so far, a disappointed Mr Tan said the outcome was contrary to feedback it had received in the run-up to the election. He had on Nomination Day ventured that his SingFirst team had a "50-50" chance of winning the GRC.

Tanjong Pagar - a mid-size GRC with some 130,750 voters - is one of two GRCs contested in the general election by SingFirst, which was registered in August 2014.

Read more about GE2015 here.