Singapore election: Workers’ Party’s Sengkang win boosts opposition presence in parliament to record high
- Winning additional GRC and keeping Aljunied and Hougang means WP has 10 of 93 parliament seats, highest-ever percentage of opposition legislators
- Observers say results indicate desire by voters for ‘check and balance’ on PAP-led government
Gains by the Workers’ Party (WP) in Singapore’s general election on Friday will bring elected opposition representation in parliament to 10 seats, an all-time high, and reflect a desire by voters for a check on the People’s Action Party government, analysts said.
In a knife-edge victory, the four WP candidates aged between 26 and 44 secured 53 per cent of votes in the Sengkang constituency, only the second time the opposition has won a multi-seat ward that exists to ensure multiracial representation in the Chinese-majority city state.
The party also retained Aljunied and Hougang constituencies, improving on its performance in the 2015 polls. Its score of 60 per cent of the vote for Aljunied was comparable to and in some cases better than the PAP’s showing in some multi-seat constituencies.
“Today's results are positive, but we have to hit the ground running. We should not get over our head with the results. There's much work to do,” WP chief Pritam Singh said.
The Workers’ Party’s elected candidates will make up 10.3 per cent of parliament, with the PAP taking the remaining 83 elected seats and 61.2 per cent of the popular vote.
The WP victory in Sengkang – a cluster of neighbourhoods in Singapore’s northeast with about 120,000 voters, thought to mostly be young families – spells an unceremonious exit from parliament for the government’s labour chief Ng Chee Meng, who helmed the PAP’s team.