PAP wins in a landslide with 69.86% of votes

The ruling party takes 83 seats and recaptures Punggol East SMC while the Workers’ Party retains Aljunied GRC and Hougang SMC with reduced margins.

Posted 12 Sep 2015 03:26 Updated 12 Sep 2015 07:28

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans gave the People’s Action Party (PAP) its biggest endorsement since 2001, with the ruling party winning nearly 70 per cent of the popular vote, recapturing the single-seat of Punggol East and making inroads in almost all constituencies – including the Workers’ Party-held ward of Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) where the contest came down to the wire.

With all 89 seats being contested for the first time since Independence, the PAP captured 83 seats. This included 12 out of the 13 Single Member Constituencies (SMCs), traditionally considered easier targets for the Opposition.

The ruling party received over 70 per cent of the vote share in 15 out of the 29 electoral divisions – with Jurong GRC (79.28 per cent), Ang Mo Kio GRC (78.63 per cent) and West Coast GRC (78.57 per cent) the top three performers.  

The WP retained Aljunied GRC with a narrow 50.95 per cent of the votes. It also successfully defended Hougang SMC with 57.69 per cent of the votes, a dip from its 2012 by-election result of 62.1 per cent.

Overall, the PAP’s 69.86 per cent share of the popular vote was the highest since 2001’s landslide victory of 75.3 per cent – a year when only a third of eligible voters actually voted due to walkovers, as compared to this General Election where all 89 seats were contested.

This is also a 9.72 percentage-point upswing from its 60.14 per cent share of the overall votes in 2011.

In East Coast, the GRC where the PAP had its narrowest win in 2011 with 54.8 per cent, the ruling party extended its vote-share to 60.73 per cent against the WP’s ‘B’ team.

Single seat wards that were carved out of GRCs for this election also saw convincing wins for the PAP. In Bukit Batok for instance, Mr David Ong took 72.99 per cent of the votes in a three-cornered fight. In Fengshan, Ms Cheryl Chan – the first new face the PAP has ever fielded in a new SMC – received 57.52 per cent of the votes.

MacPherson incumbent Tin Pei Ling garnered 65.58 per cent of the votes against opposition from the WP and National Solidarity Party.

For the first time, Singaporeans got an early indication of the final results with the public release of the sample count results, from about 9.30pm.

As the final results rolled in, confirming the initial picture painted by the sample count results of a massive swing in votes towards the PAP, observers, candidates and opposition parties scrambled to take stock of the results, which most described as a massive “national swing” to the PAP.

- CNA/yv