Haters don’t bother HHH
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/ge2025-campaigning-day-8-general-election-5090651
Ms Han Hui Hui, the activist and
PAR candidate for Tanjong Pagar GRC, knows exactly what her detractors say about her.
“Her voice is very irritating, her face is very ugly. Then there’s nothing else already,” she told me.
“To me, I think that is a success. Because if you can only criticise my voice and my look, but you cannot criticise the topic that I raised, that means the issues I want to raise are the correct issues that really affect the lives of Singaporeans.”
Ms Han became known for her fiery speeches at the "Return Our CPF" protest in 2014. Much has changed since then.
For one, she’s become a mother of three.
Ms Han’s children – the eldest is in kindergarten – keep her going in the face of critics and unfriendly voters.
“I want to teach them how to stand up for themselves,” she said of her kids. “I teach my children to try again and again.”
Ms Han still prizes speaking her mind. That’s why she's contesting an election for the second time.
Although she’s standing under
the PAR this time, the fact that it’s an alliance means she can air her thoughts freely without needing to toe a party line, she told me.
PAR’s Tanjong Pagar GRC candidate Han Hui Hui speaking to the media at Tiong Bahru on Apr 30, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Raj Nadarajan)
But there have been changes since her GE2015 campaign in Radin Mas SMC where as an independent, she finished in last place and lost her deposit in a three-way fight.
Instead of using social media, she is more focused on engaging residents on the ground. Her campaign messages have been about
high public housing prices, MediShield Life premium increases, poor mental health among children and Singapore’s Gini coefficient – 0.435 in 2024 before government transfers and taxes.
And the issue closest to her heart this time is Singapore’s falling birth rate. The total fertility rate remained at its record low of 0.97 in 2024.
Younger residents in their 20s and 30s tend to be friendlier with her, she said, and they tell her about wanting to start families but find it “impossible”.
“I want to speak up when I see something is unjust and unfair. I know it is a very hard battle, it's like moving a mountain.
But if you want to move a mountain, you need to first move the sand. So I'm willing to take the first step,” she said.
She may have her critics, but she has her fans too. After our interview, Ms Han was giving out flyers in Tiong Bahru when a starstruck secondary school student excitedly asked for a photo and took extra flyers for her schoolmates.
PAR’s Tanjong Pagar GRC candidate Han Hui Hui distributing party flyers at Tiong Bahru, Apr 30, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Raj Nadarajan)