Singapore — The Workers’ Party’s (WP) Aljunied team finally updated the profile photo and cover photo of its Facebook page to showcase the newly elected reps after this year’s General Elections.
About two-and-a-half months after the watershed election, Mr Gerald Giam and Mr Leon Perera were finally included in the Aljunied GRC Facebook page’s profile and cover photos.
The previous Aljunied GRC page’s profile photo was of the WP team from 2016.
From February to a month after the 2020 elections, the page’s cover photo featured the earlier WP team with former Hougang SMC MP Png Eng Huat.
In August, the photo was changed to a graphic wishing supporters a happy National Day.
The administrators of the page updated both the profile photo and the cover photo on Sunday (Sept 27) with newer pictures of all five MPs who were elected this year. The photos immediately drew more than 1,500 likes each:
https://www.facebook.com/aljuniedcommunity/photos/a.325878424140045/3449416441786212/?__cft__[0]=AZV82qKXzTd7TPMS_toN1By43J78NCBY3ShxgqnDRBxyKFVAl2uNOVH5h4LRkYq9CXlS-TzyDgWYc-QrDK7JnoOhBf4LmYO4q4I_gshHWLAnPtuUjE3uJ-YdGD8ZoCH0Hu_-w2bWKYE2BA5ckBKx1Aq486Ls1_58cy9D_XFA5acbQpJhaxgZea6SK9LxWYtIzRLodH4wHoaU18PvQg0yB7Vb&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
https://www.facebook.com/aljuniedcommunity/photos/a.165772233483999/3449368028457720/?__tn__=%2CO*F
The WP was first elected in Aljunied GRC nearly a decade ago in 2011. The party contested the ward for the first time in the 2006 elections but lost narrowly, garnering close to 44 per cent of votes.
In the 2011 elections, then-WP chief Low Thia Khiang decided to leave his Hougang SMC ward after two decades to lead the team running in Aljunied.
WP Chairman Sylvia Lim was the only candidate who contested Aljunied in the 2006 polls to remain in Mr Low’s team in 2011. Three fresh faces — lawyers Pritam Singh and Chen Show Mao along with family counsellor Muhamad Faisal Manap — completed the team of five.
Mr Low’s gamble in Aljuneid, which could have put an end to his two-term tenure as MP, paid off when the WP won with 54.72 per cent of votes.
The victory was momentous and marked the first time in Singapore’s history the opposition wrestled a multi-member ward from the PAP.
Although the WP retained Aljunied GRC in the 2015 elections, its vote share dipped to about 51 per cent.
The results of that election, which has been called a freak election because it was held months after founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s death, was sobering for the WP. It lost the Punggol East single-member ward which has been under its control since 2013.
In the years between the 2015 and 2020 elections, Mr Low passed the baton on to Mr Singh, who was elected Secretary-General in the party’s internal election in 2018.
Ahead of the 2020 polls, Mr Low and Mr Chen announced that they would not be contesting the election. Their places were filled by former Non-Constituency Members of Parliament (NCMPs) Gerald Giam and Leon Perera.
Despite the absence of two popular incumbent MPs, the new WP team was re-elected with a resounding mandate of nearly 60 per cent – the party’s best result since it first won the ward in 2011.
The WP, which was standing in its first election under Mr Singh’s leadership, also held on to Hougang SMC and won a new multi-member ward — Sengkang GRC — unseating yet another PAP Cabinet minister.