PAP's five-member team to be helmed by Grace Fu; first-term MP to contest new SMC

Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu will helm the PAP team to contest the newly formed Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC in the general election.

- Michelle Ng Correspondent and Syarafana Shafeeq

The five-member team will include political newcomer David Hoe, 37, and Mr Lee Hong Chuang, 54, who contested the Hougang seat in the 2015 and 2020 elections.

Mr Hoe is the director of philanthropy at The Majority Trust, while Mr Lee is the former branch chairman of the PAP's Hougang division.

The other two incumbents besides Ms Fu, 61, are Minister of State for Law and Transport Murali Pillai, 57, and Minister of State for Health and Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam, 44.

The PAP will field first-term MP Xie Yao Quan, 40, in the new Jurong Central SMC. Mr Xie has been representing the Jurong Central ward in Jurong GRC since he was elected in 2020.

Introducing the PAP slate at a press conference on April 14, Ms Fu said her diverse and dedicated team of men and women from their 30s to 60s, with backgrounds spanning education, law, youth development, women's matters, family matters and community, can offer residents "energy, experience and empathy".

Ms Fu had been tipped to lead the PAP team in the new group representation constituency, which includes most of Yuhua SMC.

She has represented Yuhua since 2006, when the ward was part of Jurong GRC. It was subsequently carved out as a single seat in 2011 and remained a single-member constituency in the 2015 and 2020 general elections.

The core of Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC comes from Jurong GRC, including the Bukit Batok East ward helmed by Ms Rahayu and Clementi ward overseen by two-term MP Tan Wu Meng.

Besides absorbing most of Yuhua, the new GRC will also take in all of Bukit Batok SMC - where Mr Murali is the incumbent MP - and parts of Hong Kah North SMC, whose current MP is Dr Amy Khor. It has a total of 142,510 voters.