March 12, 2025
SINGAPORE – Major changes ahead of Singapore’s next general election will see the creation of one more group representation constituency and an additional single-seat ward, bringing the total to 18 GRCs and 15 single-member constituencies.
The number of elected MPs will increase to 97, up from 93 now.
The revisions will see electoral boundaries change in 22 out of the current 31 constituencies.
The release of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) report on March 11 marks a major step on the road to the next general election, which is expected to be held in the first half of 2025.
Explaining its recommendations, the EBRC said in its report that voter numbers have grown significantly in Pasir Ris-Punggol, Sembawang and Tampines GRCs, as well as the single seats of Hong Kah North and Potong Pasir.
This is largely due to population shifts and new housing developments in these areas, it said. Voter numbers in each of these constituencies have increased by more than 10,000 since GE2020.
Revisions to electoral boundaries in these areas had knock-on effects on boundaries in some surrounding constituencies, the EBRC said.
With the latest changes, the number of four-member GRCs will grow from six to eight, while the number of five-member GRCs will go down from 11 to 10.
One key change is the creation of a new four-member Punggol GRC. It will take in Punggol West SMC and parts of Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, which will shrink into a new four-member Pasir Ris-Changi GRC.
Five SMCs have been taken off the map, while six new ones have been added. The single seats removed are: Bukit Batok, Hong Kah North, MacPherson, Punggol West and Yuhua.
The new SMCs have mostly been carved out of existing GRCs. They are: Bukit Gombak, Jalan Kayu, Jurong Central, Queenstown, Sembawang West and Tampines Changkat.
Three polling districts in Tampines West, east of Bedok Reservoir, have been moved from the opposition-held Aljunied GRC to Tampines GRC.
Sengkang GRC, which is also held by the Workers’ Party, is among nine constituencies to see no changes to electoral boundaries. The other eight are Bishan-Toa Payoh, Jalan Besar, Marsiling-Yew Tee and Nee Soon GRCs; as well as Bukit Panjang, Hougang, Marymount and Pioneer SMCs.
An estimated 2,753,226 voters will head to the polls in 2025, an increase of 101,791 from GE2020.
The EBRC submitted its report to Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on March 7. Its recommendations have been accepted by the Government, the Elections Department (ELD) said on March 11.
Significant changes have been made in the east and west of Singapore, where the fiercest electoral battles are expected to be fought.
In the east, the new Pasir Ris-Changi GRC will be formed by merging parts of Pasir Ris-Punggol and East Coast GRCs.
East Coast remains a five-member GRC. However, it will take in 15 polling districts from Marine Parade GRC – mostly flats in Chai Chee and private estates in Siglap. The constituency was hotly contested by the People’s Action Party and WP in 2020, with the ruling party eventually winning 53.39 per cent of the vote.
A new five-member Marine Parade-Braddell Heights GRC will absorb the single seat of MacPherson. It will take in two polling districts from Potong Pasir, where many new flats have been built in the Bidadari area, and parts of the existing Marine Parade GRC and Mountbatten SMC.
In the west, the new five-member West Coast-Jurong West GRC will take in estates from neighbouring Jurong West and Taman Jurong, which are in Jurong GRC.
Estates in Dover and Telok Blangah, which are part of the existing West Coast GRC, will be absorbed into Tanjong Pagar GRC. West Coast GRC saw the closest fight in 2020, when the PAP won with 51.69 per cent of the vote against the Progress Singapore Party.
Meanwhile, a new five-member Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC will take in polling districts from the existing Jurong GRC, as well as parts of three SMCs which have been taken off the map – Bukit Batok, Hong Kah North and Yuhua.
The EBRC, made up of five senior civil servants, was formed seven weeks ago on Jan 22. It was directed to keep the average size of GRCs, the proportion of MPs elected from SMCs, and the average ratio of electors to elected MPs, about the same.
The average number of MPs in each GRC will be 4.56, down from 4.65. In the coming general election, there will be approximately 28,384 voters per MP, compared with 28,510 now.
And about 15.5 per cent of MPs will be elected from single-seat wards, compared with 15.1 per cent at the last election.
The next big step will be when Parliament is dissolved and the Writ of Election issued. The writ sets out a date for Nomination Day, when candidates confirm the constituencies in which they will stand.
Nomination Day will likely be followed by the minimum nine-day campaign period and Cooling-off Day – when campaigning is banned – before Polling Day.
In the past four general elections, the time between the release of the EBRC report and Polling Day has ranged from two to four months.
In a Facebook post, PM Wong acknowledged that the report had been submitted.
“The next milestone will be to update and certify the Registers of Electors, before the elections are called later,” he said.
Political observers noted that it is the first time in several decades that the EBRC has laid out reasons for its decisions. Past reports since the 1990s have typically set out boundary changes with little explanation.
The committee may have done so in response to calls for greater transparency on how it works, they suggested.
In a statement, the PAP said its branches and activists will make the “necessary adjustments” to prepare for the general election.
“Meanwhile, residents can continue to seek assistance from their existing PAP branches,” it added.
Party branches will continue to listen to residents’ feedback, understand their needs, and act on their behalf to improve their communities, it said.
The latest electoral boundary revisions also drew responses from opposition parties, some of which expressed disappointment with how the battle lines have changed.
PSP secretary-general Hazel Poa said in a statement that she was heartened by the EBRC’s move to disclose more of the reasoning behind its decisions.
“However, PSP’s view is that much of the EBRC’s decision-making remains unexplained, and the EBRC could have accounted for population shifts without making drastic changes to existing major electoral boundaries,” she said.
The WP noted that the report contains “brief justifications” for boundary changes, and that there are “significant changes” to areas in which it had been working consistently in the last few years.
It added that it would share more information on the constituencies it is likely to contest, as well as its potential candidates, in due course.