Edwin Tong says this election fight will be his toughest

The PAP's battle with WP for East Coast GRC will be Culture, Community and Youth Minister Edwin Tong's toughest general election to date, he said on April 23.

- Ng Keng Gene Correspondent and Joyce Lim Senior Correspondent

At a press conference where he formally introduced PAP's East Coast team, which he is leading, Mr Tong said that East Coast has always been a tough constituency to win.

Earlier in the day, it was confirmed that the PAP team contesting the constituency's five seats comprises Mr Tong, 55; two East Coast incumbent MPs, Senior Minister of State for National Development Tan Kiat How, 47, and four-term MP Jessica Tan, 58; and new faces Hazlina Abdul Halim, 40, and Dinesh Vasu Dash, 50.

They are up against a team from the WP helmed by former Non-Constituency MP Yee Jenn Jong, 60, and includes information technology professional Nathaniel Koh, 41; former US Navy administrator Paris V. Parameswari, 51; former lawyer Sufyan Mikhail Putra, 33; and Visa product lead Jasper Kuan, 46.

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, 64 — who led the PAP team for the constituency in the last election after being moved there in a Nomination Day surprise — is not on the slate.

At the 2020 General Election, the five-member East Coast GRC saw the second-closest winning margin for the PAP.

It won with 53.39 per cent of the vote against the WP, which received 46.61 per cent.

Mr Tong said: "I think opposition presence has become a permanent feature of Singapore's political landscape — more contestation, more diversity of representation, more voices — and I think this is here to stay.

"In particular, East Coast has always been a tough (constituency) for the PAP over the many decades of GEs that we have seen."