GE2025: Desmond Lee’s PAP team dashes Tan Cheng Bock’s hopes by winning 60% of votes in West Coast-Jurong West GRC
This is Dr Tan’s final electoral contest; Leong Mun Wai, Hazel Poa to lose NCMP positions
[SINGAPORE] The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) team in West Coast-Jurong West GRC successfully fended off a second challenge from the opposition Progress Singapore Party (PSP) on Saturday (May 3), widening its lead under newly redrawn electoral boundaries.
The PAP also defeated the PSP in Chua Chu Kang GRC and four Single-Member Constituencies – Kebun Baru, Marymount, Pioneer and Bukit Gombak.
Led by Minister for National Development Desmond Lee, the PAP team secured 60.01 per cent of the vote against the PSP which received a vote share of 39.99 per cent. A total of 147,210 valid votes were cast, with 1,437 votes rejected. The results mean that PSP will lose its Non-Constituency MP (NCMP) seats in the next Parliament.
Speaking to the media after the announcement of the sample vote count, Lee said that he had not expected PAP to win by such a high margin. The PAP’s latest outing at the polls saw a strong vote of confidence, with the votes bagged eight percentage points more than that won in 2020.
He added: “It was a very intense contest, but it was a very dignified one. It was robust, and everyone had robust debates in public as a part of the campaign. But I think ultimately, we conducted it in a dignified way and it’s a maturing of our (political) system.”
Lee’s team included incumbents Ang Wei Neng and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Finance and Education Shawn Huang, as well as newcomers Hamid Razak, an orthopaedic surgeon, and lawyer Cassandra Lee. The party’s 2020 General Election (GE) team was led by former transport minister S Iswaran, who was jailed in October 2024 for accepting gifts in his capacity as a public servant.
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Returning for the PSP were Dr Tan Cheng Bock and NCMPs Hazel Poa and Leong Mun Wai. They were joined by first-timers Sumarleki Amjah, a silat practitioner, and legal counsel Sani Ismail.
In a statement issued after the results were announced, Leong said that PSP was “shocked” by the outcome. “We will study seriously and humbly into our failure, and reconsider how we can gain further trust from Singaporeans. We may need to review our strategy and regroup ourselves to fight another day,” he added.
The fight for West Coast-Jurong West GRC was among the closely watched battles after the PAP eked out its slimmest win in the 2020 election with 51.68 per cent of the vote in West Coast GRC, against a PSP team including Dr Tan, Poa and Leong. The PSP’s top-loser vote count paved the way for Poa and Leong to join Parliament as NCMPs.
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For GE2025, the constituency’s boundaries were redrawn to incorporate areas such as Jurong West and Taman Jurong. The revised West Coast-Jurong West GRC has 158,836 registered voters.
For more election coverage, visit our GE2025 microsite
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