GE2025: Edwin Tong leads PAP’s East Coast team against WP veteran Yee Jenn Jong’s slate (2025)

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SINGAPORE – Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, 55, is leading the PAP’s East Coast GRC team against a WP team helmed by party veteran Yee Jenn Jong, 60.

Mr Tong is joined by two incumbents – Senior Minister of State for National Development Tan Kiat How, 47, and Ms Jessica Tan, a four-term backbencher, 58.

Rounding out the slate are two new faces, Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash, 50, former chief executive of the Agency for Integrated Care, and Madam Hazlina Abdul Halim, 40, former journalist and current senior vice-president at advisory firm Teneo.

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, 64, who led the team at the last general election, is not on the slate.

Apart from Mr Yee, the rest of the WP’s East Coast team are second-time candidate Nathaniel Koh, 41, and three new faces – Ms Paris V. Parameswari, 51, Mr Sufyan Mikhail Putra, 33, and Mr Jasper Kuan, 46.

Ms Paris is a former US Navy security administrator and Mr Sufyan is a former associate director at a law firm, while Mr Kuan is the Asia-Pacific product lead for disputes solutions at payments firm Visa Worldwide.

The line-ups were confirmed on April 23 at the Yusof Ishak Secondary School nomination centre, ending months of speculation that came right down to Nomination Day itself.

The five-member East Coast GRC, which saw the second-closest winning margin for the PAP at GE2020, is set for another close fight.

Both the incumbent PAP and WP will be looking to improve on their previous showing. In 2020, the PAP team led by DPM Heng – who was moved to the group representation constituency in a Nomination Day surprise – won against the WP with 53.39 per cent of the vote. The WP received 46.61 per cent.

Two members of that PAP team had earlier announced their retirement from politics – Dr Maliki Osman and Ms Cheryl Chan.

The constituency’s boundaries have shifted for GE2025. The Joo Chiat ward from Marine Parade GRC has been absorbed into the constituency, while the Loyang and Flora estates of the Siglap ward have been drawn into the neighbouring Pasir Ris-Changi GRC.

There are 151,073 voters, of whom about 40,000 came from the private estates of Joo Chiat and public housing blocks of Chai Chee.

East Coast has historically been one of the hottest election battlegrounds, with the WP chipping away at the vote share each election.

In 2015, all three Non-Constituency MP slots went to two of the WP candidates who contested East Coast GRC – Mr Leon Perera and Associate Professor Daniel Goh – and Fengshan SMC’s Dennis Tan. NCMP seats are given to the “best losers” of each election.

That Mr Tong is anchoring the PAP’s East Coast team comes as no surprise, as he has been overseeing the Joo Chiat ward since 2015.

In the run-up to the polls, he had also expressed his desire to continue serving Joo Chiat residents, when asked by the media.

Mr Yee’s return to politics was teased in an online video by the WP on the eve of Nomination Day.

He first entered politics in 2011, contesting Joo Chiat SMC, where he lost narrowly. He was then appointed to an NCMP position.

Mr Yee later contested as part of WP’s Marine Parade GRC slate in 2015 and 2020.

Speaking to supporters after being successfully nominated, Mr Tong introduced his team.

“We all come from different backgrounds, but we are all bound today with a common purpose – and that is to serve East Coast to the best of our abilities,” he said.

“We pledge to work hard to listen to your hopes and concerns. We’ll turn your aspirations into reality. If elected, we will serve all of you with everything that we have,” he added.

New face Dinesh said he was “back in East Coast” and had “never left since the days of the pandemic”.

Earlier in April, he had been seen in East Coast with the incumbent MPs, though he had not been present at constituency events in recent weeks.

Mr Tong later told reporters that he expected the election to be a tight one. He had met Mr Yee in Marine Parade in previous elections, “and I think he’s a good opponent”.

In his speech, Mr Yee said many volunteers and past candidates had worked in East Coast tirelessly over the past 20 years. “We will be your voice in Parliament,” he said.

Mr Koh brought up cost of living, housing and family as some of the key issues East Coast voters care deeply about.

“The Workers’ Party continues to give you a credible choice,” he said.

• Goh Yan Han is political correspondent at The Straits Times. She writes Unpacked, a weekly newsletter on Singapore politics and policy.

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