GE2025: Hougang SMC does not belong to the Workers’ Party but to the people, says PAP candidate Marshall Lim 

SINGAPORE: Hougang SMC, Singapore’s longest opposition-held ward, does not belong to the Workers’ Party (WP) but to the people, said the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) candidate for the ward, Mr Marshall Lim, on Wednesday (Apr 30).

“When you go to the polls on Saturday, remember that Hougang does not belong to the Workers’ Party, no matter what they say and no matter how many documentaries they produce about it.

“Hougang belongs to you,” Mr Lim, 38, told voters during his maiden rally speech at Anderson Serangoon Junior College.

In his speech, he made a broader point about how Hougang was “more than a symbol” and how politics should not come at the expense of community, saying that over the years, “politics has begun to test the care that we have for each other”. 

The criminal lawyer relayed how last week, one of his campaign volunteers, a Hougang resident, was spat at by someone twice while helping him to distribute cards outside Hougang MRT Station.  

“Now, I firmly believe that that moment does not define Hougang, or anyone of us here tonight,” said Mr Lim, who took over as PAP’s Hougang branch chairman in February. 

“But I will not pretend that it did not disappoint me.”

The incident was a “sobering reminder” of how far Singapore has drifted from the “politics we deserve”, he said. 

The choice for voters was not just between two candidates or parties but between two visions of Hougang, he added – one rooted in “old lines, drawn deep and hard” and the other a Hougang that chooses “something different” where unity is the foundation. 

Mr Lim is up against WP incumbent Dennis Tan, who was voted in at the 2020 General Election (GE). 

The WP has occupied Hougang SMC since GE1991, when then-party assistant secretary-general Low Thia Khiang triumphed over his PAP opponent with 52.8 per cent of the votes.