GE2025: Ong Ye Kung unveils PAP’s Sembawang GRC slate in video, including two new faces (2025)

SINGAPORE - Health Minister Ong Ye Kung took to social media on April 21 to unveil the PAP team for Sembawang GRC, including two new faces.

A video uploaded on his Facebook page, captioned “5 individuals, 1 team. A Sembawang for Everyone”, features the anchor minister with incumbent MPs Vikram Nair and Mariam Jaafar, along with two new candidates, Mr Gabriel Lam and Mr Ng Shi Xuan.

But Mr Ong did not say explicitly that this would be the team contesting the constituency.

In late March, Mr Lam, chief operating officer of moving company Shalom International Movers, and Mr Ng, director of battery company Powermark Battery and Hardware, were introduced by Mr Ong as likely candidates for the GRC at the launch of a community initiative to help seniors in Bukit Canberra.

Incumbent Sembawang GRC MP Lim Wee Kiak is not in the video. On April 13, Mr Ong paid tribute to Dr Lim at a constituency event, but stopped short of saying the four-term MP would be retiring.

In a Facebook post earlier in April, Dr Lim had called on residents to support his potential replacement.

He wrote: “It is my honour to serve our residents along with members of Canberra zone 6 residents’ network, and going forward I hope the members will extend support to second adviser, Mr Ng Shi Xuan.”

Mr Ng, 35, served as vice-chairman of the MacPherson Youth Network, and has been a grassroots volunteer in MacPherson for 10 years.

He was previously a public servant and was last at trade agency Enterprise Singapore, helping Singapore companies grow their businesses overseas.

“You don’t know me, but I fight hard for the community,” Mr Ng said in the video, which shows him playing football and interacting with residents.

In the one-minute clip, Mr Lam, 42, said: “I push hard to uplift the lives of others.”

Mr Lam’s family moved to Sembawang in 1988, when the group representation constituency was formed, and he attended primary school in the area.

In late March, Mr Ong introduced the new candidates as a “dynamic duo” who are bosses of small and medium-sized enterprises that operate in competitive industries.

Both men were later spotted with the incumbent Sembawang GRC MPs at community events, including the constituency’s health carnival on April 20, and on April 6, when Mr Ong announced new developments in the GRC and recapped his team’s track record over the past five years.

Closing the video, Mr Ong said: “It takes time to truly know someone, through their actions, not words. Let’s do this together, shall we?”

Incumbent Sembawang GRC MP Poh Li San, who oversees the Sembawang West ward and is expected to contest the newly carved out Sembawang West SMC, is also not featured in the video. If she is fielded, she will go up against Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan at the polls.

A three-way fight is shaping up in Sembawang GRC, with the SDP and the National Solidarity Party (NSP) throwing their hats into the ring.

During the 2020 General Election, the PAP won Sembawang GRC against the NSP with 67.29 per cent of the vote.

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