The jibes are coming thick and fast as by-election fever in Hougang heats up ahead of Polling Day on 26 May.
In her latest post on her personal blog in almost a year, Workers’ Party (WP) chairman Sylvia Lim declared Hougang residents are a “special” group of people.
Lim wrote, “What’s so special about Hougang? In summary, Hougang residents have shown that they will defend democracy in their own backyard, even if it costs them.”
She went on to recount an incident 15 years ago when she asked her then secretary, a Hougang resident, how it felt to have transport routes to her area cut after WP chief Low Thia Khiang first wrested control of the constituency.
“She told me something which I remember vividly to this day: ‘Never mind—if we have no train, we will take bus! If we have no bus, we can walk!’,” she wrote.
“Such is the resolve of her and thousands of her neighbours, who have withstood decades of discrimination to vote for WP and Mr Low Thia Khiang, election after election,” she added in a fresh pre-election salvo directed at the ruling People’s Action Party.
“Does Hougang matter? You bet it does,” Lim concluded.
In the five-paragraph post published on Saturday, Lim also shared that “all hands are on deck” for the party’s preparation for the by-election in Hougang, which was called last Wednesday.
“The Workers’ Party machinery is cranking, and there is a certain beauty and rhythm, refined over the decades,” she said as the party’s gears are being wound into motion once again, with preparations in logistics, manpower and messaging underway.
She also revealed details about her friendship with the Workers’ Party chosen candidate, semi-retired businessman Png Eng Huat. She said she has known him for six years and that they shared similar interests in music such as the Beatles and great singer-songwriters of the 1970s.
She also got to know more about him when they worked together with her in starting a WP Christmas choir for the Hougang Children’s Christmas party in 2010.
“He spent hours transcribing guitar chords and showing me the fingering for shortcuts of the difficult chords so that we could cobble together a good show for the children and families,” she wrote.
The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit an all-time high of 321 at 10pm on Wednesday, crossing into the "hazardous" range, according to data from the National Environment Agency (NEA).