GE2025: After rejecting the party several times, this PAP newcomer is now ready to give her all for this 'heavy responsibility'

Truth be told, Ms Jasmin Lau would rather recommend other candidates for this interview. Low-key by nature, she finds it “very difficult” to talk about herself.

When I asked her to introduce herself on camera during the 90-minute session at her home last Thursday (Apr 17), she said: “Hi, I’m Jasmin!” 

I waited for her to add a pithy descriptor such as “former civil servant” or “People’s Action Party (PAP) new face”. She simply smiled, anticipating my next question.

The 42-year-old was deputy secretary at the Ministry of Health (MOH) until Apr 1, when she resigned to contest in the coming General Election.

She has since been fielded in PAP’s slate for Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency (GRC), alongside Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the elected Members of Paliament in 2020’s polls Darryl David and Nadia Samdin, and former Aljunied GRC candidate Victor Lye.

This interview was our third interaction and I knew by then that giving garden-variety descriptions of herself weren't her style. Nonetheless, I prodded her to elaborate. 

“Hi, I’m Jasmin! I’m the one seen playing basketball in the video,” she said, beaming.

She was referring to the video posted on Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s social media channels on Apr 12 that introduced several PAP new faces, including herself.

She had decided on her video sequence – featuring her teammates from MacPherson Basketball Club – after the producers proposed scenarios and she didn't resonate with them.

She recalled their suggestions: “You can take a walk near a Singapore landmark. You can walk through a park, jog if you want, meet the elderly, meet children.

“This goes back to who I am. I don’t walk randomly in the park; I hardly visit tourist attractions. So then I said, ‘Well, how about playing basketball?’” 

STAYING AUTHENTIC 

And staying true to herself is something she holds fast to even now. Since stepping into the public eye, some people have suggested she draw her eyebrows or make her eyes look bigger. Others have advised her to wear earrings for “a feminine touch”. 

Well-meaning as they may be, makeup is “just something that’s not me”, she said, barefaced during our interview.

I’d already sensed that Ms Lau had no interest in pretence when I joined her first walkabout in mid-April at Ang Mo Kio GRC.

When a reporter asked why she was there, I expected her to say she had grown up in the estate or had some affinity to it. Instead she said matter-of-factly: “This is not my choice, for sure, where we choose to walk about.”

She was just being honest, she said, laughing when I told her that response was why I wanted to interview her one-on-one. Potential candidates are told where to go, with possible last-minute changes.  

“You keep the anxiety and panic inside and you just sort of roll with it,” she added, echoing a lesson from her 19-year civil service career about serving wherever she’s sent.

For that reason, she also finds it “paiseh” (Hokkien for embarrassing or awkward) to pinpoint causes that she hopes to champion if elected – a question she has been asked to prepare.

“When you serve, it’s not what you champion or care most about. What I care most about may not be what you care most about. What I want to champion may not be what you need,” she said. 

But she believes that this hesitance to promote herself comes from “a place of gratitude”.

“We don’t exist because we made ourselves into some success story. We are where we are because our parents, our siblings were there. We were lucky to get a certain boss, a certain project; asked to join a certain sports team,” she said. 

“To come out and say, ‘Here I am, I’m so-and-so. I’m humble, I can do this, I have conviction’, it’s super weird for me and not myself.”

When senior leaders advise her to “stop flying under the radar”, she has explained: “It has to be something done at a pace comfortable for me, because it’s a huge change from my personality.”

SHE TURNED DOWN PAP SEVERAL TIMES 

Asked how her ex-colleagues would describe her personality, Ms Lau said that they would likely report: “Jasmin has balls.”

“Sometimes they want to say something but they feel a little unsure. They will say, ‘Jasmin, how about you help us say it?’” she added. 

“Even my ex-bosses would tell me, ‘You know, maybe you want to wrap that sentence up a little bit better. Maybe there’s a kinder or gentler way to say it’.”

When the PAP first approached her about a year ago, she had no reservations about rejecting the party. And she stood firm whenever it tried a “slightly different pitch” every few months.

She enjoyed spending time with her children and didn’t want to disrupt the routine she and her husband had built with them.

“We both found a very nice rhythm, even though we’re both working parents. We come home in the evenings, we pick them up ourselves … We play, we eat, we sleep together in the same room,” she said. 

“It’s the life that we dreamt of for many years before, so I don’t want that to change.”

Her husband, Mr Joel Tan, is a public servant, as the chief executive officer of non-profit organisation Kidstart. 

To her, in these ways, they were already serving Singapore.

She remembered the PAP then asked her: “If not you, then who?” 

“I couldn’t come up with names – not because I don’t think there are other people, but I don’t spend my time sitting around thinking who can be the next candidate,” she said. 

At one point, she approached her former boss, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, for guidance – albeit reluctantly. She still didn’t want to join politics then. 

Mr Gan gave her an hour of “marriage counselling” instead. 

“At the end, he just said, ‘If you sort out your marriage and it’s strong, that becomes the foundation for everything in life going forward, whether you do this or take a new public service job. It will be more stressful, your kids may grow up and become rebellious, but if your marriage is strong, then what would you have to be afraid of?’” she recalled.

Still, there wasn’t an “a-ha” moment. Ms Lau had no qualms admitting that she still wonders every day why she entered politics.

“Many other candidates have stories about conviction and purpose. But for me … I felt it's not an opportunity to be proud of, but a heavy responsibility given to you and you just take it,” she said.

“I don’t know how all the other candidates look confident, that they’re okay. Because I’m not okay.”

She particularly struggles with the “emotional guilt” of not having enough time with her sons, aged four and two, which has become noticeable in the past few weeks.

“When I come back and the kids are asleep, I want to cry because I miss out two, three hours with them every day.”

STICKING TO HER VALUES

While Ms Lau knows the sacrifices required, she has always been “fully prepared” to turn down and even “walk away” from a job if asked to do something misaligned with her values.

Right now, she said the party’s values align with hers. 

Her older brother is also her "moral compass" lest she lose her way.

An ex-boss, too, recently reminded her of her longtime principles.

“He probably knows that this is the last thing I would have wanted to do, so he said, ‘Don’t need the job more than the job needs you’.

"He knows I already had a little of that mindset over the years in civil service, but I think he felt I needed a reminder,” she said. 

“It’s a very healthy way of thinking. If you have that mindset ... you’re going to do what you think needs to be done. If residents don't like what they see, if your leaders don’t like what they see, it’s fine. Next better player, please. That has to be the attitude we take.”

In any case, the May 3 polls won’t be the first time she has little control over an outcome. 

Becoming a parent – from the in-vitro fertilisation process for her firstborn – upended her previous belief that effort necessarily pays off equally.

“A lot about parenthood has been about letting go of your dreams that you want to force on your children and just appreciating … the hours that you have with them,” she said.

And if she doesn’t get elected, getting to be a stay-at-home mum is “not a bad outcome”, she added.

In the meantime, Ms Lau hopes that voters will understand her values, which she feels are more influenced by her recent experiences than her upbringing. 

A quote from retired American basketball player Tim Duncan, formerly from NBA team San Antonio Spurs, captures her ethos of never settling: “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.”

Her teammates might describe her similarly as someone who “plays until she cramps”, she said.

“I think that’s the reputation I have in life, not just in sports. You give your all until you don’t have anything left to give.”

She believes that knowing her values now, people will understand “why I behave a certain way, why I say certain things, why maybe at some point I refuse to do certain things”. 

“Later on, if I behave weirdly, people can figure out: Is that really her? And that shapes what I put out about myself.”

Any change to her life now must therefore be sustainable, so that “day after day, during the grind, you are willing to do”, she said. 

In other words, don’t expect Ms Lau to embrace makeup regularly anytime soon, because she believes in staying true to herself before she can expect anyone to trust her.

“If we want to tell other people to be comfortable in their own skin, to be happy with who they are, then it starts from us,” she added.