[SINGAPORE] The Progress Singapore Party (PSP) is fielding its A-team in West Coast-Jurong West GRC, in a partial reprise of the 2020 general election contest where the People’s Action Party (PAP) eked out its narrowest victory.
Party chairman Tan Cheng Bock and Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) Leong Mun Wai and Hazel Poa will head PSP’s team in the newly formed Group Representation Constituency.
Speaking to the media at Taman Jurong market and food centre on Sunday (Apr 20), Leong said that “this will probably be the last election” for Dr Tan, who is 86 this year.
In GE 2020, the three party leaders headed PSP’s team for West Coast GRC, where the PAP saw its lowest winning vote share of 51.68 per cent.
Rounding out PSP’s team this year are first-time candidates silat practitioner Sumarleki Amjah and legal counsel Sani Ismail.
PSP also introduced the party’s first-time candidate for Pioneer Single Member Constituency (SMC), lawyer and former civil servant Stephanie Tan.
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The 37-year-old homemaker graduated with a law degree from the National University of Singapore and had stints as a legal counsel in the Ministry of Defence and in the legal policy division in the Ministry of Law.
West Coast-Jurong West team
The party had initially considered placing Poa in an SMC, but eventually made the collective decision to have her and Leong run in West Coast-Jurong West GRC, said Poa.
“After all, it is West Coast residents who put us both into Parliament as NCMPs and we should continue to offer ourselves to serve the residents who gave us this opportunity,” she added.
Having two new minority candidates in the team shows the importance that PSP places on multiracialism, said Leong.
Sumarleki, 53, heads the business development department of a multinational food and beverage company. He was the assistant secretary-general of the Singapore Silat Federation in the 1990s.
Sani, 49, is the managing director and legal counsel of a condominium management firm. He studied law at Thames Valley University in the UK and worked there for several years before returning to Singapore in 2013 to work as an in-house legal counsel for various industries.
West Coast GRC became West Coast-Jurong West GRC when electoral boundaries were redrawn for GE2025, absorbing estates in Jurong West and Taman Jurong while losing its Harbourfront and Sentosa polling districts.
In GE2020, the PAP team for West Coast GRC was led by former Transport minister S Iswaran, who was jailed last October for obtaining gifts as a public servant.
This election, the PSP will face a PAP team led by Minister for National Development Desmond Lee, with incumbents Ang Wei Neng and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Finance and Education Shawn Huang, as well as two first-time candidates, orthopaedic surgeon Hamid Razak and lawyer Cassandra Lee.
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