The People's Action Party (PAP) retained East Coast Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in GE2020, beating the Workers' Party (WP) narrowly with 53.41 per cent of the votes.

The opposition team, comprising Nicole Seah, Terence Tan, Dylan Ng, Kenneth Foo and Abdul Shariff Bin Aboo Kassim, garnered 46.59 per cent of the votes — 6.82 per cent less than the PAP team.

This was after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, who is also PAP's First Assistant Secretary General, was fielded to East Coast instead of his home ground of Tampines, in what was considered a last-minute, surprise decision.

Aside from Heng, the PAP's team for East Coast GRC includes Cheryl Chan, Jessica Tan, Maliki Osman and Tan Kiat How.

Greater vote share than previous election

East Coast GRC has long been a PAP stronghold since its formation in 1997.

Despite WP having contested in the GRC in the last four elections since 2006, it has not managed to wrest the area from the ruling party's control.

WP's vote share in this election for East Coast (46.59 per cent) was within two percentage points of its 2011 vote share (45.2 per cent). It was an increase of 7.29 per cent from its 2015 showing (39.3 per cent).

2015 vote share for East Coast

Here are the vote shares that the PAP and WP garnered in 2015 in East Coast:

• PAP: Lim Swee Say, Lee Yi Shyan, Maliki Osman, Jessica Tan — 54,981 voters, 60.7 per cent
• WP: Leon Perera, Daniel Goh Pei Siong, Gerald Giam, Mohamed Fairoz Bin Shariff — 35,547 voters, 39.3 per cent

2011 vote share for East Coast

Here are the vote shares that the PAP and WP garnered in 2011 in East Coast:

• PAP: Lim Swee Say, Raymond Lim, Maliki Osman, Lee Yi Shyan, Jessica Tan — 59,992 voters, 54.8 per cent
• WP: Gerald Giam, Png Eng Huat, Mohd Fazli Talip, Eric Tan Heng Chong, Glenda Han — 49,429 voters, 45.2 per cent

Overall vote share in WP-contested wards

In GE2020, the WP garnered an overall vote share of 50.49 per cent. They secured 279,245 of the 553,118 valid votes cast in the six wards they contested.

This is higher than the 2015 showing (39.8 per cent) and the 2011 showing (46.6 per cent).

Top photo from Nicole Seah / FB