Kurt Ganapathy was on the ground in Bedok, Bukit Panjang, MacPherson, Tampines and Telok Blangah as election season kicked off in earnest.
In a most unusual year, Singaporeans are heading to the polls for a most unusual election – one where virtual campaigning and safe-distanced walkabouts have replaced physical rallies.
Taking place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Singapore General Election kicked off with Nomination Day on June 30, and it turned out to be a day of surprises.
The biggest among them saw Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Heng Swee Keat move from Tampines group representation constituency (GRC) to anchor East Coast GRC.
This was a site of close battles between the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and the Workers’ Party (WP) in the last two elections. DPM Heng will lead his team against a WP slate which includes one of the stars of the 2011 General Election, Nicole Seah.
Among the other match-ups revealed at the nomination centre we covered – St Anthony’s Canossian Primary School in Bedok:
- PAP’s Sun Xueling against WP’s Tan Chen Chen in the new Punggol West single-member constituency (SMC).
- PAP versus WP in the new Sengkang GRC.
- And a three-cornered fight between the PAP, Peoples Voice (PV) and the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) in Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC.
In the following days, we tagged along as candidates from the PAP, WP, Progress Singapore Party (PSP), Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and People’s Power Party (PPP) campaigned across the country.
Nomination Day
East Coast GRC: PAP vs WP
West Coast GRC: PAP vs PSP
Bukit Panjang SMC: Liang Eng Hwa (PAP) vs Dr Paul Tambyah (SDP)
MacPherson SMC: Tin Pei Ling (PAP) vs Goh Meng Seng (PPP)
Campaigning will carry on in the lead up to Polling Day on July 10, with the customary break for Cooling-off Day on July 9.
Photography and Editing: Kurt Ganapathy
Curation: Arman Shah
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![[Content warning – this profile piece discusses the subject of suicide that may be sensitive and potentially triggering. Reader discretion is advised. Information about seeking help is available at the end of the carousel post. Stay safe]
“My brother died 8 years ago. I was at home when I found out. It was a Friday night, and I was on a long-distance call with my partner who was in Europe at the time. At 1am, I got up from bed to go to the toilet. That’s when I saw my mum crying alone in the living room.
My mum isn’t a particularly emotional person. I’ve probably seen her cry three times my whole life. I was worried and concerned, of course, and asked what’s going on. She turned to me and said, ‘I have bad news. Joel died.’
When a sibling dies unexpectedly, it takes time for you to process the news. And then you realise that your family will never be the same again. You will never be full or complete anymore. There is only brokenness. And that was the first emotion that hit me really hard.
The next morning, we got more details, and I learnt that he killed himself. When someone commits suicide, family is required to identify the body at the mortuary. My mum said, ‘Look, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.’ And I’m thinking, how can I let you do this alone?!
Even though I could sense a heaviness in the air around her, my mother looked relatively composed. But when they wheeled in the body, she simply broke. She kept saying that it’s not him. It’s not him. It doesn’t look like him. I had never seen that side of her before.
My mother was always put together, but at that moment, she sounded like a young mother who had just lost her newborn baby. It was less heartbreaking that I lost my brother, and more painful that I had to see her that way.
When my brother was 12, he moved out of the house and lived with my grandmother. I never knew why. Maybe it’s because we weren’t well-to-do. Maybe it’s because our parents didn’t have the best of relationships. I was his younger sister, but I didn’t know much about him.
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