Yee Jenn Jong shares his GE 2011 experience standing against Charles Chong

Former Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Yee Jenn Jong took to social media reminiscing about his experience during the General Elections in 2011 with the media and his opponent, the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) Charles Chong.

In a Facebook post on Monday (Oct 19), the Workers’ Party (WP) politician wrote: “Was digging through a cloud storage of old photographs stored by a volunteer since 2011 and saw this old full page feature in ST of Charles Chong and me in the run up to polling of GE2011”.

He shared some background information behind the news feature, that he planned to use as an extract in his new book.

https://www.facebook.com/yeejj.wp/posts/3417622408305509

Mr Yee wrote: “As the campaign went on, the press got wind of the contest getting warmer. The Straits Times contacted me and said they would feature my opponent, Charles Chong, and would also give a similar-sized article for me”.

Mr Yee chose a coffee shop next to Siglap Centre for his interview.

He said that after the interview with the Straits Times, he went for a round of house visits with his volunteers.

“There, at Wong Clinic, I met an elderly nurse. As I passed our brochure to her, she said that she remembered me. She had worked there for some 40 years and said that I was often running around in my pyjamas as a young kid whenever I was there to see the doctor”.

He added: “I immediately called the reporter who still at the coffeeshop. I told him that he should speak with the nurse. He did. The next day, the story opened with what the nurse had told the reporter about me running around in my pyjamas as a child at the clinic”.

Mr Yee shared that “if there was one shop which long-time residents in Siglap knew, it would be Wong Clinic”.

He said that the coverage of The Straits Times’ article was “quite long and covered me as the local-boy-made-good”.

Mr Yee first stepped into politics in 2011 contesting in the Joo Chiat Single Member Constituency against Charles Chong from the People’s Action Party. Although he lost marginally with 48.99% of the votes, he finished as the second-best loser in an election and was appointed to an NCMP position in the 12th Parliament of Singapore. /TISG