PAP new face Marshall Lim is respectful of Hougang's past, but believes slate is 'wiped clean' come election time

The People's Action Party (PAP) nominee for Hougang SMC, Marshall Lim, loves collecting old CDs.

During a conversation lasting an hour-and-a-half, which covered his legal career, his thoughts on GE2025, and his views on Hougang SMC, his eyes lit up when the topic turned to music:

"The act of clicking the disc in place and closing the cover, pressing the button; it's a whole experience, right?"

As Lim explained the magic of old-school CD players, he seemed nostalgic and wistful.

"We saw the world go from dial-up internet to broadband internet. We saw that great transition," he said, a self-avowed Millennial.

Not unlike the CD, I thought to myself, itself caught somewhere in between the old-timey vinyl, and the newfangled Spotify playlist: old and new, past and present.

Marshall Lim's past

Lim told me he grew up in a largely Mandarin- and Hokkien- speaking household, and in fact struggled with English when he was in school.

He had to learn from secondhand books his dad would pick up around their neighbourhood.

Lim still comes off as something of a nerd, able to expound at length about author Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain".

In secondary school, he discovered a talent for debating, and a legal career was an unsurprising next step.

After hoovering up degrees at the National University of Singapore, Columbia University and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Lim served as a Deputy Public Prosecutor from 2012 to 2020, before moving into private practice as a criminal lawyer.

Then came politics. On Apr. 13, 2025, Lim was introduced to the media as a PAP candidate for Hougang SMC.

But why did Lim make the switch to politics after over a decade of public and private legal practice? Lim sees politics as less of a switch, and more of an "evolution":

"The idea of service, the notion of service, has always stuck with me. It's always about using what I know to help someone."

Hougang's past

However, the road to Parliament for Lim will not go through debate and rhetoric alone.

Lim has been working on his Teochew ever since he became the PAP's branch chairperson in Hougang SMC in February 2025.

"Many of the elderly folk in Hougang are conversant in Teochew. So I was motivated to learn it, because there is a sense of connection," he said.

It's been slightly less than three months, but Lim shared that he is making some headway with the language.

His proficiency in Hokkien, he explained, makes it a little easier for him to pick up Teochew, though the similarities do trip him up from time to time.

All the same, Lim told me that residents are sometimes surprised to hear someone so young speak in dialect.

"The slate is wiped clean, not the history."

Going into this GE, Lim shared that he is "respectful" of Hougang's heritage and its history, not just pertaining to its Teochew roots, but also its identity as an opposition stronghold.

However, Lim said:

"I'm very, very respectful of Hougang's history and heritage... but I am also mindful that come election time, the slate is wiped clean, not the history."

Lim believes that history should not play a part in how the residents of Hougang cast their ballots on May 3.

"I'm very mindful of the history, but I'm not shackled by it. I want to give our young residents an option, and I hope that I would be given an opportunity to be assessed fairly," he said.

The realities of a tough contest

Lim shared that he has spoken to the former PAP branch chairpersons in Hougang, Jackson Lam and Lee Hong Chuang, learning from their experiences, but looks to find his own way in the opposition-held ward.

Both Lam and Lee are PAP candidates for GE2025, with Lam fielded in Nee Soon GRC and Lee standing in Jurong East-Bukit Batok GRC.

"I had conversations with them to understand their experiences. And from there, you have to take that with you and and build your own understanding of the constituency, of its people," he said.

Given that his predecessors did not win their campaigns, would Lim have preferred to be fielded elsewhere? Did he volunteer for Hougang?

Lim replied:

"You could say that when I started the journey of contemplating politics, it had been very clear in my mind - very clear in my mind - that if I were to be called on to serve in an opposition-held ward, then I would do so without reservation."

As the conversation came to a close, I asked Lim if he had any backup plans were he to lose.

Lim demurred from directly responding, but replied that he is conscious that every election boils down to a winner and a loser.

All the same, he seemed to have his mind on more than just winning:

"The way I look at it, right, we focus on people. That is the foremost thing in my mind, people - the foremost obsession is Hougang and her residents.

We do it with the right spirit, and the right way, and we trust the voters to make a choice."

Top photo by Tharun Suresh