PAP Retains Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC With No Contest

Expected challenge from WP fails to materialize; first walkover at a GE since 2011

- Ng Keng Gene

In an unexpected turn of events, the PAP won its first constituency at the 2025 General Election when it stood uncontested for the five-member Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC on April 23.

The PAP team was expected to be challenged by a team from WP, which had contested Marine Parade GRC in 2020 and garnered 42.26 per cent of the vote, losing to PAP's 57.74 per cent.

Minister of State for National Development and Home Affairs Faishal Ibrahim, Speaker of Parliament Seah Kian Peng, former MacPherson MP Tin Pei Ling, and PAP new faces Diana Pang and Goh Pei Ming will be part of Singapore's 15th Parliament.

This is the first walkover at a general election since 2011, when a PAP team for Tanjong Pagar GRC stood uncontested.

Signs that the WP would not be contesting emerged on April 23 morning at the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council Hougang Office, when reporters from The Straits Times heard WP supporters talking among themselves that the party would not contest Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC.

The non-contest was confirmed at Kong Hwa School—the nomination centre for Marine Parade-Braddell Heights—when no team from the WP showed up by 12pm to register as candidates for the election.

At about 11.20am—40 minutes before the deadline for candidates to file their nomination papers—Mr Goh showed up at Kong Hwa instead, without the rest of the PAP team for the constituency.

Mr Goh, 43, had been seen at walkabouts in East Coast GRC prior to Nomination Day.

About five minutes later, four PAP candidates—Associate Professor Faishal, Mr Seah, Ms Tin, and Ms Pang—walked into the centre together, without Dr Tan See Leng, who had been slated to lead the team into the election. Dr Tan was spotted earlier in the morning at the PAP's Mountbatten branch office, where the party's candidates for Marine Parade-Braddell Heights had gathered.