Singapore — Workers’ Party MP Raeesah Khan, who is expecting her second child, has taken to social media to thank Compassvale residents she met during the recent walkabout for wishing her a safe delivery.
Ms Khan, who is responsible for that part of Sengkang GRC, added on her Facebook and Instagram pages that many of the residents she met at Compassvale Crescent at the weekend “were very grateful for the cleaners who work hard everyday to keep the estate clean”.
She said: “Everyone I met wished me good health and safe delivery, which is so lovely!
“Just shows how caring people in Compassvale are and how the kampung spirit is still truly alive.”
Ms Khan made history when the WP team won in Sengkang GRC in this year’s General Election because she became not only the first female Malay opposition MP but also, at 26, the youngest of all the MPs.
She turned 27 on Nov 10.
Ms Khan married in 2018 and had her first child, a son, on July 12, 2019. While she has kept her home life relatively private, she has at times shared photos of her little boy, writing on Oct 24, “Chasing after a toddler is not easy.”
While her baby bump was not obvious during the campaign period, her pregnancy became obvious by the time Parliament opened. But being pregnant has not prevented the new MP from going around meeting residents and seeing what kind of assistance they need.
Early in October, she went around a Compassvale estate with new volunteers, one of whom had just given birth and another who had twin daughters. “We bonded over the joys (and woes) of parenthood,” she wrote.
Ms Khan, who has also shared that she started her journey with the WP as a case writer for party chief Pritam Singh at Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS), has been an activist since her teenage years.
Speculation that she would contest in this year’s elections began in January when she was spotted with WP members handing out party leaflets at a walkabout in the Punggol region.
The daughter of former presidential aspirant Farid Khan, the freelance digital marketing consultant and social activist is also the founder of the Reyna Movement, a non-profit organisation to empower women through community engagement and up-skilling programmes as well as to support refugees.
In 2019, Ms Khan was featured as one of the “Changemakers” in Cleo magazine.
However, controversy hounded Ms Khan during the election campaign period in July this year when two police reports were filed against her concerning comments she made online in 2018 on race and religion. Ms Khan issued an apology hours after the police confirmed that reports had been filed against her on July 5. She also said she would fully cooperate in police investigations.
And while the People’s Action Party issued a statement the next day asking the WP to clarify its stand on Ms Khan, she received the full support of the party and continued with the campaign.
Rather than dampening support from the public, many, including those online, began to support Ms Khan even more and to criticise the police reports.
And the WP’s Sengkang slate of lawyer He Ting Ru, economist Jamus Lim, research analyst Louis Chua and Ms Khan went on to win in the elections, defeating the PAP team in the biggest upset of the polls, winning 52.13 per cent of the vote in the GRC.
The WP team bested the formidable PAP team of labour chief Ng Chee Meng, Senior Minister of State (Transport and Health) Lam Pin Min, Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Home Affairs and Health) Amrin Amin and newbie Raymond Lye, a lawyer. /TISG
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