GE2025: He’s a prize-winning singer and Pritam Singh’s legislative assistant. Now add ‘potential candidate for Tampines GRC’
He has had a few regrets in life, but this self-proclaimed workaholic does not plan to have another regret and is ready to contest at the 2025 General Election.
Workers' Party member and potential candidate Jimmy Tan Khim Teck pictured on Apr 14, 2025 before the start of a Meet-The-People Session where he volunteers as a legislative assistant. (Photo: CNA/Raj Nadarajan)
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As a young child, Mr Jimmy Tan Khim Teck felt inferior to other children his age because he was not as well-to-do. His childhood home in Chai Chee was a small one-room rental flat on the ground floor, which felt overcrowded when his parents and three siblings were all home.
New toys were a rare luxury and unlike other children who got to spend time playing, Mr Tan would walk around the neighbourhood with his siblings promoting his mother’s popsicles or Chinese desserts.
Mr Tan, a potential candidate for Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC) for the Workers' Party (WP), said that selling these desserts helped the family of six make ends meet, supplementing the income of his father's work as a school bus driver.
Although he has good memories of his childhood and his mother’s never-give-up entrepreneurial spirit shaped who he is today, Mr Tan admitted that those times were tough.
“I felt I was one class lower than my friends growing up,” the 53-year-old sales manager said. "We lived in a flat where if you close your eyes, you can easily walk to the kitchen, toilet and bedroom. It was quite small."
Now a grandfather of two, he is co-founder of Immanuel Engineering, a family-run business that sells process and explosion safety equipment.
He hopes to give back to society and create a bright future for other Singaporeans – through politics.
