After suffering a “razor thin loss” during the 2011 presidential election (he lost to our current President Tony Tan, FYI) Dr Tan Cheng Bock was more than ready to try again in this year’s election.
Alas, the government amended the constitution to narrow down the field of candidates to only those of Malay descent — apparently because they wanted to ensure multi-racial representation.
Many folks however claim that it was a bullshit decision; they accused the government of changing things up just to prevent Dr Tan from running (and possibly, winning) in this year’s presidential election.
Earlier today, Dr Tan held a press conference to formally voice out his contentions with the upcoming reserved election in August — he called on the government to hold an open election instead.
In particular, he questioned why the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) had advised the Prime Minister to count from President Wee Kim Wee instead of President Ong Teng Cheong — the first elected president.
If Singapore doesn’t have a president from a particular race for five consecutive years, it is mandated that the next election will have to be reserved for candidates of that race. In this case, Dr Tan questions why the five-term count started from Wee’s term (1985-1993) when in fact Ong was the country’s first directly elected president (1993-1999). If the five-term provision was counted from Ong’s presidency, the whole reserved election wouldn’t be needed at all.
“In all my 26 years in Parliament, we have always referred to Mr Ong Teng Cheong as the first elected President,” Dr Tan said. “Even the commission’s report contains a statement referring to President Ong as the first Elected President.”
Dr Tan added his concerns that the elected president “will always be tainted with the suspicion that the reserved election of 2017 was introduced to prevent (his) candidacy.”
The government has yet to respond to Dr Tan’s statements.
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