SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh put up a post on Tuesday night (March 25) that has quickly gone viral, in part because he likened the new electoral boundary at Marine Parade to the cartoon character Marge Simpson, known for her yellow skin and blue, sky-high hair, in what is presumably meant to highlight the randomness, perhaps even absurdity, of the new boundaries.
“Since the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (ERBC) 2025 report was released about two weeks ago, there has been significant public commentary, especially by young Singaporeans questioning the fairness of the political boundary redrawing process by the PAP government,” he wrote.
The Leader of the Opposition added that constituencies that are closely contested have tended to get redrawn by the following election and noted that there had been incredulity when “population growth” was cited as the reason for “one of the most radical redrawing of boundaries Singapore has seen in recent memory.”
He wrote that the reasons given to justify electoral boundary changes are important, as when then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Murali Pillai, who won the Bukit Batok SMC by-election in 2016, would have already been an MP if Paya Lebar had been an SMC.
“How so? In 2015, Murali Pillai was a member of the losing PAP Aljunied team. The division he oversaw as the People’s Association Grassroots Adviser and PAP branch chairman polled higher than the other divisions of his PAP colleagues in Aljunied GRC,” wrote Mr Singh, adding that SM Lee’s comment had been “instructive,” as it had shown “the results of individual wards and precincts, even in GRCs, are closely watched.”
As for the “Marge Simpson” electoral boundary screenshot he posted, he noted that it would not be “out of place for Singaporeans to wonder” how the people living in the 15 precincts in he had highlighted in yellow had voted in the previous election. These precincts, formerly belonging to Marine Parade GRC, are now part of East Coast GRC.
He then went to say that the work of the ERBC is important to Singaporeans “because we all seek a meaningful stake in the country we call home – for a functioning and robust social compact that creates trust, so that we are all invested in our shared future. This is the spirit captured by the Forward Singapore report – a report where fairness was upheld as a shared value of all Singaporeans.”
Mr Singh ended his post by writing that the ERBC report is proof that Singapore still has a way to go “to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality,” and called on Singaporeans to “step up,” which has become a rallying cry of sorts for the WP.
“Let’s press on to build a more balanced political system. It can be done,” he added.
His post has since been shared over 200 times and has received many comments, many of which came from netizens who agreed that the boundaries had been drawn in favour of the ruling party.
“This is like the postmodernism nonsense whereby WORDS (in this case, geographical district names) no longer have fixed meaning; the meaning is now fluid and is all about relativism,” wrote one commenter on Mr Singh’s post.
Others encouraged the WP chief to “stay focused how to win votes from voters of these redrawn boundaries.” /TISG
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