Election season naturally brings a firestorm of media reports and polarising online chatter to our screens and front pages.

This year, there's been much talk over the battles at East Coast, West Coast and even controversy surrounding alleged racist statements made by an opposition candidate.

But amidst all the coverage, one particular opposition ward appears to have gone under the radar.

Little attention has been given to Hougang SMC, where Dennis Tan works the ground without much fanfare or media circus.

And yet, one gets the sense that this is how the Workers’ Party (WP) candidate prefers it, working away from the media spotlight, speaking one on one with residents.

On the late Saturday morning, June 27, before nomination day, I watched as Tan walked the ground around Block 327 Hougang Avenue 5.

Flanked by Png Eng Huat, WP GE2015 candidate Adrian Sim, and a woman named Irene, Tan’s walkabout carried a different rhythm and energy than those seen in other constituencies.

Tan's relationship with Hougang residents began when he started helping Hougang MP Png Eng Huat at his Meet-the-People sessions. For the past three years, Tan has since been a familiar face in Hougang.

During the walkabout, Png takes the lead and introduces Tan as the party’s next Hougang candidate — but his successor holds his own, greeting residents in Teochew and bantering with them.

This block’s coffeeshop might be a 10-minute stroll away from Block 322, but the reception for Png and Tan is warm, nonetheless. Interactions with residents moved seamlessly between fleeting "Hi’s" and fist bumps to long, drawn-out conversations.

Tan is invited to take a seat at the table as residents share their concerns and thoughts with him. Whenever this happens, Irene dutifully appears by his side and diligently takes notes.

As Tan told The Straits Times, “you cannot walk too quickly”.

“If not, people will say you ‘zou ma kan hua’, so you need to give the residents the time.”

As the Chinese phrase — which refers to a person who has a superficial understanding of the issue based on hasty observations — underlines, residents of Hougang want an MP highly attentive to local, town-level issues. One who is highly present on the ground.

By the time that Tan finally sat down to have lunch, an hour of canvasing the small coffeeshop at Block 327 had passed.

Dennis Tan will attempt to defend WP's symbolic home

Speaking to Mothership back in 2016, Tan said that he did not start out in politics in a “deliberate way”.

“I actually started out because I was asked to help Yee Jenn Jong in GE2011. A mutual friend was helping out and I lived in the then Joo Chiat SMC, so I support the Workers’ Party, and I decided, why not? I got more involved.”

In 2015, he went up against PAP's Cheryl Chan in Fengshan SMC, and captured about 42 per cent of the vote in an election that saw massive swings towards the ruling party.

Tan managed to snag himself a spot at the ‘best of the losers’ table and the title of Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP).

Today, Tan is considered one of the new batch of party leaders and plays the role of WP’s organising secretary.

And this election, he will also defend the seat that is now seen as the symbolic home of WP — or as one party member described to me, “the hotbed of Singapore’s democracy”.

“It is an honour for me to be asked by party leadership to take on this candidacy for Hougang,” Tan said on nomination day, June 30.

The significance of Hougang

WP secretary-general Pritam Singh appeared alongside Tan right after the nomination day proceedings to give the party’s first media interview of the hustings.

The move was a deliberate one said Pritam, as was the decision to hold the interview in front of the legendary Block 322 coffeeshop, which has become the unofficial gathering point for WP and its supporters.

The significance of the constituency is clear when we consider Hougang as a WP stronghold, with the party holding on to the seat for nearly three decades since 1991.

In 2011, after 20 years as the member of parliament for Hougang, Low Thia Khiang handed the torch over to a 34-year-old Yaw Shin Leong in a gamble that saw Low head to Aljunied GRC with a star-studded team.

The gambit paid off — Low and his colleagues pulled off a historic victory in being the first opposition politicians to take a GRC, while Yaw retained Hougang for the WP.

One year later, Hougang’s residents once again headed to the polls after Yaw was expelled from the party for failing to address allegations in his private life which involved a married female opposition member.

Low later admitted that “hiccups” by the party “could have shaken the faith of Hougang voters”, but residents put their trust in the party chosen candidate, electing Png in a by-election with 62 per cent of the vote.

In 2015, with Singapore mourning the death of its founding father and voters turning in droves towards the PAP, Hougang stood with the opposition, returning Png to Parliament.

Now, GE2020’s sees a WP with neither Png nor Low on any ballot card in any constituency, as the party undergoes a leadership transition.

Low's legacy

The 48-year-old shipping lawyer admitted in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao that he was “a little nervous” about succeeding Low and Png.

For decades Hougang has been synonymous with the Workers’ Party and — perhaps more precisely — Low Thia Khiang.

Ever since Low wrestled the constituency from the People’s Action Party (PAP) in 1991, Hougang has remained in the opposition’s hands, at times within grasp of the PAP.

Back then, Low charmed the town’s majority Teochew residents with his command of the dialect, before winning and maintaining their trust one heart at a time with his time spent on the ground.

Hougang’s long-time residents will regale anyone who asks about their own personal interactions with Low, from the times he attended the wakes of their relatives to the dinners he hosts during festive holidays.

While this highly personal and intimate approach strengthened Low’s iron grip on the seat, it also set a precedence for all who follow him; candidates must earn their votes.

Singapore's slum?

As Low himself said in a 2012 speech, “the majority of Hougang voters demand a standard of service and conduct from their MP that is worthy of their support”.

The focus of local concerns tend to coalesce on estate improvements and maintenance, long a thorny point in Hougang.

The description of “slum” has often been bandied about, especially during election periods.

It stemmed from a 1996 speech by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, who according to The Straits Times had declared that constituency’s who repeatedly voted “for the other side” would be “left behind”.

“In 20, 30 years’ time, the whole of Singapore will be bustling away, and your estate through your own choice will be left behind. They become slums.”

The point was hammered home in 2011, when Lee Kuan Yew famously referred to Hougang SMC in a warning to Aljunied GRC voters who were about to throw their lot in with the Workers’ Party.

“If you have the wrong government, your property prices go right down. Ask why in Hougang the property is not as high as their neighbours,” he was quoted by The Straits Times as saying.

A year later, Low talked about the “sacrifices” that Hougang voters had made, by repeatedly siding with the Workers’ Party.

“The PAP government punishes them by withholding infrastructure development and improvement to the estate,” he said.

“The Main Upgrading Program and Interim Upgrading Program were not extended to Hougang. As for the Lift Upgrading Program (LUP), Hougang was thrown to the end of the queue. As of today, LUP work has not even started for about 80% or more of the HDB flats in Hougang.

Hougang does not have complete covered walkways to link all the blocks in a precinct, a common facility in PAP wards.”

Yet, despite these setbacks, Hougang residents had continually placed their trust in the Workers’ Party, said Low.

Clashing with the PAP

Tan, himself, told The Straits Times that part of his strategy for GE2020 was to focus on issues such as lift upgrading and estate matters.

Emphasising the importance of these programs to Hougang, the one flashpoint of 2020’s campaign has involved the Neighbourhood Renewal Program, and to whom the credit for implementing it belongs to.

On July 6, Tan took to Facebook to call out his Hougang SMC opponent, PAP’s Lee Hong Chuang.

Lee, in his campaign fliers, had claimed responsibility for various enhancements to the neighbourhood’s infrastructure.

The flier, featured a smiling Lee next to large text that read “I did it” in reference to five promises that he had made during his doomed GE2015 campaign.

Specifically, Tan took issue with Lee’s declaration that he had succeeded in implementing the neighbourhood renewal program (NRP).

“The NRP is not implemented by Mr Lee. It is implemented by the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council under the leadership of the Hougang MP (Png Eng Huat),” wrote Tan.

When I asked Tan about the issue, he directed me to an earlier incident where Lee had claimed credit from for NRPs in June 2019.

On that occasion, Png resoundingly refuted Lee’s claim in a Facebook post that quoted a PAP statement which said that NRPs were linked to town councils and the MP’s who ran them.

Lianhe Zaobao reported Lee’s clarification that as the grassroots advisor for Hougang, he was part of the NRP working group, and therefore, also participated in the programme’s pre-stage planning.

Nevertheless, the conflicting assertions had confused residents and Png wrote:

“This prompted residents to ask who is actually carrying out the NRP plans for the estate, as they all understood it to be the WP-run TC.”

The challenger

As a returning candidate to Hougang, Lee has an advantage over Tan in terms of years on the ground.

He has spent about six years volunteering in the area — in contrast to the three years that Tan has clocked — and residents told me that he had built strong support among voters who lived in Block 309 to 316.

Even staunch WP supporters told me that Lee seemed like a very hardworking candidate.

And while his involvement in NRPs may have come under scrutiny, Lee’s still holds considerable responsibility for residents’ welfare.

A visit to Hougang’s Resident’s Network sees a variety of posters with Lee’s face spruiking different programmes.

One poster had the heading “Looking for a job?”, with Lee’s picture, grassroots roles, and social media accounts advertised just below it.

On nomination day (June 30, 2020), Lee was asked by reporters to assess his chances of winning this election, given Hougang’s status as an opposition stronghold.

“During this few years when I walk around in Hougang, I can truly hear that what they want is really not the party, it’s the people that are able to serve them,” he said.

“Personally in Hougang it really belongs to the people themselves, at the end they have the voice to choose who they want.”

When I spoke to one resident — 73-year-old Francis — outside the Block 322 coffeeshop, he could not recall the PAP candidate’s name, though he was very familiar with Low, Png, and Tan.

He told me that ruling party’s candidates did not campaign much at 322, because they were unlikely to make inroads with WP die-hards who habitually loitered in the area.

When he finally remembered Lee’s name, Francis opened up his bag and pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitiser.

The bottle was clear and largely void of labels except for one line of large, bold, black print — “Lee Hong Chuang”.

When Lee once again decided to advertise the enhancements he had supposedly made to the Hougang neighbourhood during the hustings of GE2020, Png’s reply was fiery and sharp.

“Today, the people of Hougang have gotten well over S$300m in upgrading under the Home Improvement Programme, Lift Upgrading Programme, Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP), car park upgrading, and counting, without voting for the PAP,” wrote Png on Facebook.

“So should I say, ‘I did it’? No, the people of Hougang did it. They saw through the charade from day 1.”

Referring to the third point on Lee’s flier, Png offered his spikiest barb yet:

“Finally, you can’t reinforce something you don’t understand – the Hougang Spirit.”

The Hougang Spirit

Tan will be hoping that he can harness that Hougang Spirit this campaign — which Low has described with the Chinese word “义气”.

Roughly, this translates to "loyal adherence to certain principles shared by a community".

The Hougang residents I spoke to said the community's spirit encompassed the friendliness and sense of belonging that they shared with their neighbours.

There was also a shout for the constituency’s uniquely stubborn belief in having an alternate voice in Parliament.

Joseph, a 60-year-old who’s lived in Hougang for over 30 years, told me:

“I tell you facts, ah, we still need opposition... very important. If there’s no opposition there’s no challenge.

If let’s say the PAP conquers the whole thing, then who is going to talk (for us)?”

In that respect, Tan might just be the perfect replacement for Png and Low.

In his time as an NCMP, the shipping lawyer has never shied away from questioning PAP policy while in Parliament.

According to a count by Yahoo News, about three-and-a-half years into his term (the count ended on July 7, 2019), Tan had made 49 queries — the third most of any MP.

His last question, which was delivered during the June 5 sitting of Parliament, pertained to the government’s plans for guiding the nation through the pandemic.

“In this brave new world, many heads with different ideas working out consensual solutions for the common good must be preferred,” he said.

Those who have followed Tan’s efforts so far would not be surprised at this line. Tan has been vocal about avoiding “group-think” in Parliament and having alternative voices to represent Singaporeans.

As I watched Tan hand out fliers and campaign material to residents outside Hougang MRT Station, his pitch matched his track record:

“Please allow me to serve you here and speak for you in Parliament.”

“It’s very important to have a voice in parliament,” he sometimes added.

"Hougang must choose you first"

In the midst of a pandemic and deepening economic crisis, pundits and politicians alike have warned that Singapore’s opposition could very well face a wipe out.

Speaking to Francis, a resident who’s lived in Hougang his whole life, he was confident that WP would be able to hold onto Hougang:

“I think (the margin of victory will be) either 60 per cent or 65 per cent... WP opposition is good. They don’t anyhow oppose you see.”

As we chatted casually, in between commuters arriving at the station, Tan told me that reception on the ground had so far been warm.

He seemed quietly confident about defending WP’s hold on Hougang SMC, though he reminded me — and perhaps himself — that the result would depend on a variety of factors.

What will Hougang SMC choose to do?

Come July 10, however, Tan will one way or another be stepping out of the shadow of his predecessors as voters take to the ballot box.

As he holds his breath on polling day, and the ballot results are read out, it's likely that — whatever the results — his predecessor’s words will be etched into his mind.

In a farewell to the constituency he served as an MP for nine years, Png wrote:

“One can never choose Hougang... Hougang must choose you first.”

Additional reporting by Mabel Wong.

Top image from Andrew Koay