Childhood photos of Sengkang GRC MPs win hearts online

Childhood photos of Workers’ Party MPs He Ting Ru, Jamus Lim, Louis Chua and Raeesah Khan that were published on social media are winning hearts online.

The administrators of the Sengkang GRC Facebook page uploaded photos of the four MPs from their early days, as part of a graphic commemorating Children’s Day that took place on Friday (9 Oct). The page said: “Happy Children’s Day from all of us at Sengkang GRC! Here’s a photo collage of our MPs’ childhood pictures – we hope it brightens your day!”

The photo collage shows (from top left, clockwise) Ms Khan wearing a headband with cat ears, Dr Lim with a baby, Mr Chua striking a pose in a stroller and Ms He in the arms of a lady.

Although the collage does not indicate who is who in the graphic, netizens accurately matched each childhood photo with the correct MP. Netizens gushed about how cute the opposition politicians were when they were children, while some praised the team for using such a creative approach to engaging with those on social media:

All four Sengkang GRC MPs are first-term parliamentarians who were elected in the 2020 general election. The polls, which took place in July, was the first election campaign for three out of the four MPs – Dr Lim, Mr Chua and Ms Khan are all fresh faces while Ms He had contested one election unsuccessfully before.

Despite facing a strong ruling party team that included three political office-holders the WP’s team for Sengkang emerged the victor at the polls in a stunning upset.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and labour chief Ng Chee Meng, Senior Minister of State Lam Pin Min and grassroots MP Amrin Amin were all ousted from Parliament by the defeat, which reportedly impacted the PAP’s succession plans since Mr Ng was a prominent fourth-generation cabinet minister.

The WP’s victory at Sengkang – which was newly carved out ahead of the polls – was historic since it marked only the second time in Singapore’s history that an opposition party managed to clinch a multi-member ward.

WP chairman Sylvia Lim even told Bloomberg that the party did not expect to win another GRC and said that the team WP fielded at Sengkang resonated with the voters there, given that all four candidates are young parents.

Following the election, the new Sengkang GRC MPs announced that they would be running their own town council (TC) instead of merging with the WP’s Aljunied-Hougang Town Council. The MPs announced that Ms He would chair the new town council.

Ex-Punggol East MP Lee Li Lian is one of the town councillors of the new Sengkang TC

Ex-PAP MP Lam Pin Min draws intense criticism for officiating Sengkang community project in place of elected WP MPs