Aljunied GRC was formed in 1988 and was won by the governing People's Action Party (PAP) against the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) with 56.33% of the vote in a straight fight.[1][2] It was uncontested in 1991.[3] The SDP returned to the GRC in 1997, but with a much poorer result compared to 1988, garnering only 32.98% of the vote compared to the 43.67% they had previously garnered.[4]
2001–2010: Entry of WP and 2006 general election
Aljunied GRC was uncontested again in 2001;[5] the WP had attempted to nominate a team for the GRC, however, it was disqualified.[6] In 2006, the WP successfully nominated a team for the GRC, which lost with 43.91% of the vote.[7] By virtue of the WP team's performance, the sole non-constituency MP (NCMP) seat at the election was offered to one of their members; Sylvia Lim accepted it.[8]
2011–present: WP representation
In 2011, party leader Low Thia Khiang, who had left his seat at Hougang Single Member Constituency (SMC), led a WP team in Aljunied GRC against the PAP team led by George Yeo and Lim Hwee Hua. They won the first GRC for the opposition since the creation of GRCs in 1988, with 54.72% of the vote against the PAP's 45.28%.[9][10] Yeo and Lim were the first two cabinet ministers since Singaporean independence, as well as the 1963 election, to be defeated for reelection and thus lose their parliamentary seats to the opposition.[11][12] As a result, both lost their Cabinet positions as well. During the campaign, then-Minister MentorLee Kuan Yew threatened that voters in Aljunied GRC would "repent" for the following five years if they voted for the WP, leading to post-election speculation that the threat had backfired for the PAP.[13][14]
2015: Vote recount and near-loss
In 2015, a PAP team led by Yeo Guat Kwang, then-MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC and former MP for Aljunied GRC, contested Aljunied GRC.[15] After the vote count was completed, they requested a recount as the initial difference in votes between the PAP and WP teams was less than 2% of the vote.[16] Following the recount, Aljunied GRC's electoral result was declared last at around 3.10am the morning after Election Day; the unchanged WP team retained it by only 1.9% of the vote, or 2,612 votes.[17][a] It was later revealed that the PAP had won in the divisions of Serangoon and Paya Lebar, which Yeo and Murali Pillai would respectively have represented, by around 300 votes each.[19]
2020: WP entrenchment
In 2020, Low and Chen Show Mao declined to run for re-election.[20][21] Led by new party leader Pritam Singh, the WP retained the GRC with 59.95% of the vote, a 9% swing in their favour from the previous election.[22][23]
Resignation of Leon Perera
In July 2023, a video surfaced that allegedly showed Leon Perera holding hands intimately with fellow WP member Nicole Seah. On 19 July, Singh revealed that the two had begun an affair some time after the 2020 general election, which had ended before the video surfaced. Perera resigned from Parliament and the WP on the same day while Seah had already done so the previous day. After Perera's resignation, the workload for Serangoon was distributed among the other MPs in Aljunied GRC.[24]
2025 general election
In August 2024, the PAP appointed Jagathishwaran Rajo and Kenny Sim to replace Chua Eng Leong and Alex Yeo respectively as the chairpersons of the Eunos and Paya Lebar PAP branches.[25] The PAP again replaced three of its five Aljunied branch chairpersons in February 2025, appointing Faisal Abdul Aziz, Daniel Liu and Adrian Ang to replace Kenny Sim, Shamsul Kamar and Victor Lye.[26]
On 11 March 2025, the Elections Department updated the electoral divisions for the general election later in the same year. Polling districts in Aljunied GRC to the east of Bedok Reservoir were absorbed by Tampines GRC; the number of MPs for Aljunied GRC remained at five. This was the first time an opposition-held constituency had its boundaries redrawn.[27]
Prior to the same election, the WP announced 2 new candidates for the GRC: Fadli Fawzi, former candidate for Marine Parade GRC, and political newcomer Kenneth Tiong. They were to contest alongside the incumbent MPs, except Faisal Manap, who had been deployed to lead an ultimately defeated WP team in Tampines GRC.[28][29] Despite a national swing towards the PAP, the WP retained the GRC with 59.71% of the vote, a vote share similar to that of 2020.[23][30]
^1.92% or 2,626 votes after counting of overseas votes.[18]
^Perera resigned in 2023 after his affair was exposed.
Electoral results
Note : Elections Department Singapore do not include rejected votes for calculation of candidate's vote share. Hence, the total of all candidates' vote share will be 100%.
