SINGAPORE: On Sunday (May 3), a year after GE2025, Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh reminded Singaporeans in a social media post not to miss the next elections, encouraging those who needed to to restore their names on the Register of Electors.
The context for his post was last year’s voter turnout, which he noted was the lowest for a GE in Singapore since the first polls were held after independence in 1968. In 2025, there were about 2.4 million votes that had been cast or around 92% of registered voters in all contested electoral divisions.
Mr Singh, who leads Singapore’s most important opposition party, reminded readers about the timing of last year’s polls, which had taken place during a long weekend that included the Labour Day public holiday, and noted that some who had planned in advance to be away from Singapore during this time had missed the chance to vote.
“Unlike in the past, many Singaporeans today look forward to long weekends as opportunities for travel. It follows that the Government should avoid holding elections over such ‘long weekends,’” he wrote.
When he raised a question about this in Parliament last September, Minister Chan Chun Sing had said, “I do not think it is possible nor in the interest of Singapore to commit to not holding an election on a particular date or during a particular period.”
When Mr Singh also asked how many absentee voters had restored their names on the Register of Electors, the government said that more than half, or 99,140 voters, had already done so, with 97% doing so online using SingPass.
Given this statistic, the WP chief added a link for those who were unable to vote in last year’s GE who wanted to apply to have their names restored.
The WP and GE2025
The party had done relatively well in GE2025, although arguably not as well as it had hoped. The WP was able to keep the two GRCs it previously held, Aljunied and Sengkang, as well as Hougang SMC. In addition, the WP now also has two Non-Constituency MPs in Parliament due to how well the party performed at the polls in Jalan Kayu and Tampines.
In his post, Mr Singh said that restoring one’s name on the register of electors matters in the year since GE2025 in light of electoral near misses.
He cited a post from the Business Times that said the WP had lost in Jalan Kayu by 806 votes, while the gap between registered voters and voter turnout in that constituency was 2,208. In Tampines, meanwhile, the WP lost by 6,379 votes, and the gap between registered voters and turnout was 10,810.
“While not every voter would have voted for WP or PAP or any other party, every eligible voter should be ready when the next election comes around! Because every vote matters, and as a Singaporean, you should make your vote count
Check your voter eligibility status and get yourself back on the Register if you have not already!” added the WP chief. /TISG
Read also: IPS GE2025 survey: Younger voters chose status quo, but WP more credible to S’poreans age 21-29
