Five-member West Coast GRC will take in parts of Jurong

It will be renamed West Coast-Jurong West GRC; new Jurong Central SMC also formed

- Ng Wei Kai

West Coast GRC will absorb some estates from Jurong GRC and be renamed West Coast-Jurong West GRC in the coming general election.

It will also cede estates in HarbourFront and Sentosa to Radin Mas SMC, and areas of Dover and Telok Blangah to Tanjong Pagar GRC, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) said in a report released on March 11.

The new West Coast-Jurong West GRC will remain a five-member one and will have 158,581 voters, it said.

This is up from the 144,516 voters the current group representation constituency had at the 2020 General Election, when it saw that election's closest contest.

The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) won the GRC with 51.69 per cent of the vote against the newly founded Progress Singapore Party (PSP), led by Dr Tan Cheng Bock, a former PAP stalwart.

The areas the new GRC will absorb include Taman Jurong, a ward held by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam for more than 20 years before he resigned in 2023 to contest the presidential election.

The report outlining the changes was received by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on March 7 and accepted by the Government to be implemented at the next general election, which must be held by November.

It gave reasons for the changes to West Coast GRC, which are part of a cascade triggered by the growth of new estates in Tengah and Bukit Batok West - areas to the north of the constituency's current boundaries.