Ch 11 excerpt

 

11.3 Managing Presidential ethnicity

Remember the sequence? After the September 2015 election the government set up a Constitutional Commission to work on aspects of the Elected Presidency. In 2016 Dr Tan Cheng Bock, once a PAP stalwart, declared his intention to run again for the Presidency, having lost in his first attempt by the small fraction of a few thousand votes. Against this backdrop, the Commission was to work on 

1.a mechanism to safeguard minority representation,

2. qualifying criteria for candidacy,

3. the role of the Council of Presidential Advisors.

The final decisions made by the government showed significant intent i.e. ¹⁶

1.       The requirement for public service and public sector experience stayed constant at a 3 year period; if it had been extended to 6, as the Commission had proposed, Madam Halimah, with 4.5 years of service, would not have qualified.

2.       The ‘shareholder equity’ requirement was increased to 500 million, effectively disqualifying the only 2 aspirants from the private sector; no one other than Madam Halimah remained.  That requirement did not apply to her. Neat, huh?

3.       Minority representation was ensured by the Commission’s proposal that an election would be reserved for a specific race if said race had not had an elected president from amongst their race for the last 5 presidencies; but given the government’s count off starting from President Wee Kim Wee, the next Presidential Election would then be a reserved one – just for the Malays; Sounds fine, except that only a former PAP public servant was left.¹⁷

For the general reader, Madam Halimah was a long-standing PAP Member of Parliament and Speaker of the House. She resigned to run for the Presidency and was endorsed by the Prime Minister. Personally, I knew her to be a lovely lady. But that’s not the point.

There are several salient observations here:

The government counted off on their decision for a minority Presidency using the term of President Wee Kim Wee as the first elected president; except that he was not elected but appointed. Further, in Singapore, the race and the ethnicity of an infant is determined by that of the male parent, as determined by the law. Madam Halimah’s father was an Indian. How then could she be identified as an ethnic Malay? By government definition she was an Indian. Nevertheless, each candidate had to be race certified as Malay by a select Committee, which Committee accepted Madam Halimah’s statement that she was indeed Malay. ¹⁸   More ‘Aha!’ moments!

As there was only 1 candidate remaining, there was no election to be held and Madam Halimah became President by default. Also, Prime Minister Lee said that he had followed these lines because it was the right thing to do. If so, then the question comes up of why doing ‘the right thing’ had taken so long – some 47 years to be exact, counting from the appointment of the 1^st President, Yusof Ishak. ¹⁹

Further, the decision to count the elected presidency from Wee Kim Wee meant ignoring Mr. Ong Teng Cheong as the 1^st Elected President. The people knew that history to be a fact. The government did it anyway. Who could POFMA them?

And finally, it is significant that this ‘reserved’ Presidency prevented Dr. Tan Cheng Bock from making a second run for Presidential office. ²⁰ From such a perspective, the intent of the move seems clear. It was carried out as formulated and vetted by the Party and then passed through Parliament. No wonder in Singapore the distinction between rule of law and rule by law has become a nebulous one!  Just as a political party has been operating for some time now as an Institution?  Voila, it is now time for a Malay President, and if determinations are needed to decide suitable ethnicity for Malay Presidential election purposes, we will make it so. Indeed. Shades of Star Trek?

Local feeling about all of this is nicely summarized in a Facebook comment made in response to an article in the Straits Times entitled ‘President Halimah a powerful symbol of unity who has been an inspiration to all Singaporeans: PM Lee.’ ²¹ and the comment…

‘This is, with all due respect, balderdash; and I would ask our Prime Minister not to foist his narrative on the rest of us. After Wee Kim Wee, the office of President has been relegated to a retirement reward for yeoman service to the PAP government. I’ll name the Presidents: Ong Teng Cheong, S A Nathan (though he was never a Member of Parliament), Tony Tan, Halimah, and now Tharman;

1.       She was a long term and non-troublesome PAP MP

2.       The Constitution allows a former Speaker of Parliament to be President (how a Speaker has special qualities eludes me)

3.       Her intended opponents were disqualified

4.       She was permitted to adopt a new race to stand in a divisive and non-unifying race based presidency.

I see nothing inspiring about this and it must be held against her that she did not stand again in an open contest. ²²   

No need to say more.