Former PAP MP Ong Ah Heng served as branch secretary under Mr Lee Kuan Yew in Tanjong Pagar.

SINGAPORE - Former PAP MP Ong Ah Heng, who was known as the “Kopitiam MP” for his close rapport with workers, died on May 5. He was 84.

The PAP stalwart was already a grassroots leader in Nee Soon Central when he stood for elections there as a PAP candidate in 1997 and wrested the single seat from the Singapore Democratic Party.

The four-term MP served the constituency till 2011 before retiring from politics.

Mr Ong, who joined the People’s Action Party in 1964, served as branch secretary under Mr Lee Kuan Yew in Tanjong Pagar, and was his principal election agent for five general elections. He also supported Mr Devan Nair in Anson.

A veteran union leader, Mr Ong joined the labour movement in 1980 and served many years as executive secretary of the National Transport Workers’ Union, before rising within NTUC to become assistant secretary-general.

“I owe a lot to the meritocratic system. There are very few countries where you could start as a construction worker and end up with a master’s degree,”he told NTUC News in 1996. “It is right that I repay society by involving myself in community work - in the Labour Movement and in other grassroots organisations.”

In a Facebook post on May 6, Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC MP Alex Yam recalled: “From afar, he carried a certain aura. You sensed immediately that he belonged to a generation of unionists who had fought many battles and earned their respect the hard way.”

Mr Yam said that Mr Ong remained active in the party after he stepped down from Parliament, and was always available with advice and counsel.

“What stayed with me was not the aura I once saw from afar, but the warmth he showed to younger comrades,” he said.

He recounted how when he called Mr Ong during the Hougang by-election to ask for support, the PAP veteran agreed without hesitation. On nomination day, Mr Ong turned up personally at the nomination centre with 100 supporters in tow.

Mr Ong later became a non-executive independent director at ComfortDelGro before retiring from the board in 2020.

He leaves behind his wife, his son, daughter-in-law, goddaughter and two grandchildren.

His son, former Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC MP Ong Teng Koon, said his father had been sick for some time and was a fighter till the end.

“PAP was very important to my father, and his hero was Mr Lee Kuan Yew,” he told The Straits Times. “He was his happiest being a party member, serving the ground and being part of the labour movement.”

He added that many of Mr Ong’s former bosses, peers and colleagues visited his father’s wake in Ang Mo Kio, and had described him as being humble, down-to-earth and loyal.

His father, who brought him into the PAP and politics, was a source of pride and inspiration, Mr Ong Teng Koon said.

“He has led a full and fruitful life,” he said. “I salute my father.”