Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s wife appears to be keeping a close watch on former ruling party politicians Ng Chee Meng, Lam Pin Min and Amrin Amin who failed to return to Parliament when they lost the electoral contest at Sengkang GRC, during the 2020 general election that took place last Friday (10 July).
Ng Chee Meng was a prominent member of the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) fourth-generation cohort of leaders and served as one of the Ministers of Education before he became the Government’s labour MP and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, in 2018.
Lam Pin Min, a former Senior Minister of State for the ministries of health and transport, is perhaps most well known for his role on the Government’s controversial policies on e-scooters. Formerly serving in Sembawang GRC, Amrin Amin was a beloved grassroots MP who was touted to become the PAP’s Malay affairs chief, after Minister Masagos Zulkifli.
All three political office-holders were unseated when they were fielded in the newly-carved out Sengkang GRC and lost the contest to a team of mostly fresh faces from the Workers’ Party (WP), in a stunning upset.
The PAP’s leader’s wife is keeping close tabs on all three former parliamentarians social media activities after the election. She shared at least 20 posts published by the three men in the wake of the election – she even shared some posts multiple times on her page.
On the day after the election, Saturday (11 July), Mdm Ho first re-posted Dr Lam’s reflections on the Sengkang result, before sharing Mr Amrin’s concession post twice with a half-hour gap between both posts. She shared a similar post by Mr Ng twice with a six-minute gap between both posts.
Mdm Ho, who is also the chief executive of Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, also shared a post by Minister Masagos praising Mr Amrin on her page on 11 July.
The three men, along with their Sengkang GRC teammate, went on a walkabout in the area on Monday morning (13 July) and Mdm Ho shared their activities on her page throughout the day. One of her first posts that morning was a photo of Mr Amrin having breakfast at Sengkang. That same afternoon, she shared another post by Mr Amrin, a photo of him posted by Dr Lam as well as another reflection post by Dr Lam.
She also shared this post Mr Ng made three times on her page., re-posting it first at 4.05pm on Monday (13 July), before sharing it two more times on 8.04pm and 8.05pm.
The next day, she shared a news article about the National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) decision to retain Mr Ng as its secretary-general despite the loss of his positions in Parliament and the Cabinet. She shared another news article about Mr Ng on Tuesday (14 July).
She kicked off Wednesday (15 July) morning with a post by Dr Lam about his favourite breakfast before sharing the invitation for an even featuring Mr Ng. She also re-posted one of Mr Ng’s post about helping workers in his capacity as labour chief.
Mdm Ho’s interest in the three politicians continues – on Thursday (16 July), she shared a post by Mr Amrin on his next steps.