Which GRCs are in the market for a new anchor minister? Here's what we think.

If you're a bit of a political nerd, you'd have realised that the upcoming General Election will feature 18 GRCs.

That's one more GRC than in the previous GE. So you might be thinking, "oh does that mean one more anchor minister?".

But who would that be?

And who else will be sticking around — or might be on their way out?

The anchor minister

Most Singaporeans would recognise the term "anchor minister".

But a quick Google search reveals that it's not an officially defined term per se.

We're no Dictionary.com, but here's our attempt at defining the term:

"An anchor minister is an MP who's also a Cabinet minister, and hence usually the most well-known or politically influential MP in the team.

Typically, a GRC has four or five MPs, of which one to two would be considered the anchor minister(s)."

To use a flawed but hopefully illustrative analogy, an anchor minister is like the "face of the team" in a sport, let's say football — take Lionel Messi of Inter Miami.

While Messi obviously isn't the only player in the team, he's the most prominent member who non-Inter Miami fans are likeliest to be familiar with.

Furthermore, an anchor minister is likely to already have a pretty solid and visible portfolio of work, going into the team (Barcelona, Argentina).

This, as you can imagine, lends a bit more credence to the rest of the team.

But — moving away from the analogy now — it's also a weakness.

If a team loses, the anchor minister is effectively voted out of Parliament with the others — and hence can no longer be part of the government.

West Singapore

The reason for the additional GRC begins with the redrawn electoral boundaries, courtesy of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee.

So for this article, we'll focus on how the redrawn boundaries, as well as personnel changes over the past year, have necessitated such shifts in power.

We have a whole island to cover, but let's start with the West.

Since 2020, Western Singapore has lost two anchor ministers: President Tharman, and former Transport Minister S Iswaran, who was one of the two anchors for West Coast GRC, the other being National Development Minister Desmond Lee.

Interestingly, in the redrawn boundaries, Tharman's GRC has been split into three different Jurong-named constituencies.

Of the three Jurongs, the one containing Tharman's ward, Taman Jurong, is now in West Coast-Jurong West GRC (previously Iswaran's West Coast GRC).

While the one containing the most area from the former Jurong GRC is the other Jurong-named GRC: Jurong East-Bukit Batok.

The new five-MP GRC also includes estates from three different SMCs: Hong Kah North, Bukit Batok, and Yuhua.

MP for Yuhua SMC, Grace Fu, was the sole full minister who represented an SMC last election.

But her Yuhua ward is now just another part of Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC.

Still. Having repped Yuhua since she joined the PAP in 2006, it's fair to assume that she'd be familiar with the lay of the land — and hence be a potential choice for anchor minister in the revamped constituency.

Asked if she would indeed step into the role of anchor minister for Jurong East-Bukit Batok, she replied: "That's a decision for the Prime Minister to make."

But Fu did say that if she is fielded, she "[hopes] to stay where [she's] familiar with, and that's in Yuhua".

Potential anchor for Jurong East-Bukit Batok: Grace Fu

At the current West Coast GRC, Desmond Lee, the Minister for National Development, is now their only anchor minister after Iswaran's resignation.

If — and it's still very much an if till the candidate names are released — Lee contests in the new West Coast-Jurong West GRC, it remains to be seen if he'll be joined by a second anchor minister, in what's widely expected to be a fierce contest with the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) and its popular chairman, Tan Cheng Bock.

Last election, the PAP managed to retain the GRC; but with 51.69 per cent of the vote, it was the PAP's narrowest margin of victory.

But things have changed.

Under the redrawn electoral boundaries, West Coast-Jurong West has now absorbed voters from Taman Jurong, historically a PAP stronghold under Tharman.

Tan appears undeterred though. He explained that he has a long history with Jurong, and was a medical doctor practising in Jurong West for many years.

"The whole area, it's not new to me," he said.

Potential anchor for West Coast-Jurong West: Desmond Lee

East Singapore

Moving over to the east.

It's been hinted that Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong — another of the PAP's 5G ministers — will be moved over to East Coast, where Heng Swee Keat and Maliki Osman are the current anchors.

This is because his Joo Chiat ward, formerly part of Marine Parade GRC, has since been absorbed into East Coast.

The move will bring the number of Cabinet ministers in East Coast GRC to three — the most in any constituency in Singapore.

Of course, with six MPs in a five-member GRC, it's perfectly plausible that one of the ministers might be moved somewhere else in the end.

For instance, a minister might be moved back to Marine Parade to fill Tong's vacated seat — where there's the question of whether Manpower Minister Tan See Leng will remain as sole anchor minister, despite it only being his second term since his political debut in 2020.

But East Coast is one of those GRCs also poised for a hot contest, which might inspire the PAP to keep a heavyweight or three there.

Last GE, the PAP prevailed over the Workers' Party team, led by former member Nicole Seah, with just 53.41 per cent: the party's second-narrowest victory.

Potential anchor(s) for East Coast: Heng Swee Keat, Maliki Osman, Edwin Tong...?

North-east Singapore

Finally, we head north-east.

This one's interesting, because it's where an entirely new GRC has sprung up (which means a new team, and accordingly, a new anchor minister).

It's the result of the former Pasir Ris-Punggol being cleaved in two: Punggol, and Pasir Ris-Changi.

The anchor minister for Pasir Ris-Punggol is Teo Chee Hean. But unfortunately, he's just one man.

This is where the extrapolation starts.

Punggol, as Singapore's youngest town with over half of its population aged 21 to 45, might be more inclined to a similarly younger anchor minister.

Teo Chee Hean, who is a Senior Minister both in title and age (he's 70), does not necessarily fit the bill.

Which begs the question: Who will be Punggol's anchor minister?

One possible option is that the PAP might "parachute" one of its excess anchor ministers over from another GRC.

Tanjong Pagar, Bishan-Toa Payoh, and East Coast GRCs all have more than one Cabinet minister.

It's also been done before. Last GE, Heng left his Tampines ward in a surprise move to lead the East Coast team.

But "parachuting" MPs — especially to an area that they might not be familiar with — isn't always popular.

So another possibility is that Punggol will look to cultivating a future anchor instead.

As with every government, it's expected that there will be people who step down, and others who step up.

Promotions, while not guaranteed, are pretty likely.

And typically, the step before Cabinet minister is Senior Minister of State (SMS).

Here's the list of SMSes, as of May 2024 (which is when Prime Minister Lawrence Wong selected his first Cabinet):

• Janil Puthucheary
• Tan Kiat How
• Low Yen Ling
• Heng Chee How
• Zaqy Mohamad
• Sim Ann
• Koh Poh Koon
• Amy Khor

Of this list, Janil, Koh, and Sim are young, prominent, and could be potential future contenders for promotion.

Potential anchor for Pasir Ris-Changi: Teo Chee Hean

Potential anchor for Punggol: ??????

Top image from Grace Fu/Facebook and Maliki Osman/Facebook