Serangoon Gardens
Swinging it for PAP
It narrowly won Aljunied GRC 56-44%; a big reason is conservative, middle-class voters in this estate. By Seah Chiang Nee. Sunday Paper
May 7, 2006

Read: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,106132,00.html

EARLY morning, quiet weekday. On a No 317 shuttle bus that plies the heartland of Serangoon Gardens are eight passengers, seven of them in their 60s or 70s. The only young person is a foreign maid.

They reflect the estate's ageing residents and large number of three-tier families. They are remnants of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's generation.

Serangoon Gardens, Singapore's oldest private estate, is about 50 years old but was recently upgraded.

Today, the estimated 40,000 middle-class residents here will have a bearing on the outcome of one of the hottest GRC battles.

Serangoon Gardens is part of the Aljunied GRC, and if the street talk is right, it will be a close contest.

There's a buzz in the air here - the last time the residents cast their votes was in 1988 before Serangoon Gardens was merged into Marine Parade.

Nearly half the residents live on landed property and hardly anyone goes without a car and a maid.

This is middle-class, family territory - where the folks take their food and religion seriously, and the men love their football.

It is the conservative streak that makes the estate - with its British road names like Carisbrooke and Berwick.

But the real force will be the silent majority - the families who eat at Chomp Chomp and other eateries, and especially the housewives and elderly citizens.

Like elsewhere, Serangoon Gardens also has its share of opposition voters, but PAP has a strong support base.

In the estate's last two elections as a single constituency, PAP took 68.7 per cent (1976) and 74.2 per cent (1988) of the votes.

But how do the elderly here now view healthcare costs? It's a popular topic.

There's also a church-going population of 4,000 who have grumbled about casino projects.

But above all, there is a new generation that is steadily taking over. The youths priorities are somewhat different from their parents'.

They are not necessarily anti-PAP, but neither are they bonded to the status quo the way their parents are.

Like the rest of Singapore, Serangoon Gardens has undergone self-renewal.

The estate was built in the '50s with houses that cost, yes, $20,000 each then.

I moved here almost 20 years ago, when the estate was starting its transformation. The older folks were passing their homes to their children, who would later pull them down and rebuild them.

This has changed the face of the estate. Today, one can still see a few old run-down houses, an indication that the owners are either childless or the children have moved out.

Slowly, the yuppies took over.

Such demographic changes are taking place elsewhere too.

So what happens here will be of interest to election watchers in general.

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,106132,00.html