In response to Anti-PAP activists: Apologise to the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee, Gary, a reader gave explanation for the WP’s famous victory.
As it chimed with what Secret Squirrel told me about what PAP leaders tot led to the defeat and what Morocco Mole (Secret Squirrel’s side-kick) told me his second cousin removed working in the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee told him, below are Gary’s comments:
Sengkang GRC was a gerrymandering blunder. They tried to stop WP from winning back Punggol East by merging it with other parts of Sengkang. The problem in that plan was that the Sengkang area as a whole has mostly younger voters – a demographic that PAP cannot count on as reliable support. The PAP’s initial loss in Punggol East had already showed its weakness in this region with the same demographic. In Sengkang GRC, the WP only had to persuade young families to support them. Contrast that with East Coast and Marine Parade GRCs where the WP candidates would have to win over a larger share of older voters if they intended to close the gap. The average Merdeka or Pioneer generation Singaporean is not very easy to persuade. On the other hand, a highly educated and younger population in Sengkang could be won over with just charismatic opposition candidates and ground engagement.
It also helped that Lam Pin Min became very unpopular after banning the PMDs – the dude was a MP in Sengkang – an area where PMDs are commonly used by the younger electorate. This is a lesson for any politician. Don’t oppose your constituents’ even if you think they are wrong on an issue. The PAP also scored an own goal by moving Amrin Amin and Ng Chee Meng from Sembawang GRC and Pasir Ris-Punggol GRCs to Sengkang. The PAP trusted that these fresh faces of the 4G – both office holders – would have the pull factor to get votes and beat back the WP challenge in the first tough battle of their careers. The problem was that these two were from other GRCs and didn’t have a high profile as leaders. Charles Chong and Teo Ser Luck would have done better, had they stayed on.
Trying to to stop WP from winning back Punggol East by merging it with other parts of Sengkang the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee helped the PAP to win a GRC?
Buy the members of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee an abalone and sea cucumber meal. They deserve it as I don’t think they’ll be getting any pay rises soon.
Btw, I doubt ASP Lim and the DPPs in the debacle involving Liew Mun Leong will be getting any pay rises soon. Rumour has it they are already sending out their cvs.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 
u got just part of the story; the young voters overwhelmingly got persuaded by Jamus Lim’s “no blank cheque” spiel & felt sympathy for Raeesah being attacked for her past comments; it does not matter to them Jamus’s spiel is actually the same old “u need us to control PAP’s power”, and Raeesah talked nonsense (the City Harvest officials went to jail, not got off free); they, like HK TW youth, r in the strawberry generation, putting “feelings” before “facts”, or like Trump fans, believe in “alternative facts”
the poor performance of PAP in campaigning is legendary; see http://yuenco.com for more discussion; they need to improve to deal with new situation of ethnic radicals allying with western minded SG liberals, incongruent as that might sound, with church fundamentalists joining chinese chauvinists to oppose them
the next local ge won’t happen until ’24 or ’25, which is a good 4 to 5 years away, and many unexpected things can and will happen between now and then.