Singapore's electoral boundaries report out, 16 GRCs and 13 SMCs for next general election

THERE will be 89 Members of Parliament after Singapore's next General Election (GE) is over, two more than the current batch of 87.

This after the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee (EBRC) issued its much-awaited report on Friday, just 11 days after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the committee was formed in May.

The five-member committee recommended that Singapore be divided into 29 divisions, comprising 13 single member constituencies (SMCs) and 16 group representation constituencies (GRCs). This is higher than the 12 single wards and 15 GRCs today.

The average size of each GRC will be reduced. Mr Lee had told parliament on July 13 that he had asked the EBRC to reduce the average size, which presently stands at five.

There will be a total of six four-member GRCs, up from the current two, and this list includes a new GRC called Marsiling-Yew Tee.

The existing Moulmein-Kallang GRC, a four-MP constituency, will soon cease to exist. The wards in this GRC will be siphoned off to four other GRCs.

As for the five-member GRCs, there will be eight instead of the current 11 after the EBRC downsized the East Coast, Chua Chu Kang and West Coast GRCs by one MP each.

The two largest GRCs in Singapore, Ang Mo Kio and Pasir Ris-Punggol, will remain as six-member constituencies.

Three of the 13 SMCs proposed - Bukit Batok, Fengshan and MacPherson - are new. Two existing SMCs, Joo Chiat and Whampoa, will be absorbed into Marine Parade and Jalan Besar GRCs respectively.

The latest figures show that the estimated number of voters as of Aug 1 this year is 2,460,977. This is an increase of 110,720 electors from the 2,350,257 recorded in the 2011 Registers of Electors. This works out to an average ratio of one MP to about 28,300 electors based on the 87 elected MPs today.

Mr Lee received the EBRC's report on Tuesday. The government has accepted the recommendations and will implement them at the next GE, which must be held by January 2017 at the latest.