SINGAPORE: Having a contest for the upcoming Presidential Election is “important for me”, said Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Sunday (Jun 11) as he expounded on his decision to run for the Singapore presidency.
Political observers told CNA on Thursday after Mr Tharman announced his intention to run that having a strong candidate like him could have “drawbacks”, such as the election being a walkover as no one else may contest.
They also noted that having another walkover would call into question the viability of an elected presidency.
Madam Halimah Yacob became Singapore's President in 2017 after other potential candidates failed to qualify.
Responding to these perspectives, Mr Tharman told reporters on Sunday that he would “much rather win or lose with a contest”.
“My whole approach is not to shy away from competition. It’s always been that way. It’s how I prove myself,” he said.
While no one else has signalled an intention to run for the presidency, observers have suggested that Harvey Norman Ossia’s founder George Goh could be a contender.
"JURONG WILL BE OKAY"
Mr Tharman on Sunday also clarified a sporting analogy he made on Thursday when asked about his intention to run for the presidency after previously ruling himself out as Prime Minister.
A lot of his instincts were "shaped as a sportsman", he then said. He added that in almost all the games he played, he never liked being a centre forward (at the head of a team's attack) but preferred to be in defensive positions.
“I’m not on the same team as the government once I become president, be very clear about that,” Mr Tharman said on Sunday.
“All I meant is that my cast of mind all along has been that … (I like) being in defence. But I (will) not (be) on the same team as the government. If anything, I’ll be a referee.”
Mr Tharman declined to comment further on matters relating to his presidential campaign, as he was focused on his government commitments.
He also said that he would deal with questions about the election, which must be held by Sep 13, in due time.
But Mr Tharman added that if he is elected as Singapore's President, he would continue to be engaged in some high-level international panels that he is currently involved in.
Some of these engagements include chair of the Board of Trustees of the Group of Thirty, an independent global council of economic and financial leaders from the public and private sectors, and co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
On Sunday, Mr Tharman attended the official opening of ActiveSG Sport Village @ Jurong Town, located in Jurong GRC where he oversees the Taman Jurong division as its Member of Parliament (MP).
He was joined by three other Jurong GRC MPs – Mdm Rahayu Mahzam, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Ministry of Health and Ministry of Law, Mr Shawn Huang and Mr Xie Yao Quan. Dr Tan Wu Meng was overseas.
Mr Tharman took a tour of the facility by observing ongoing hockey and football games, and interacted with the young players and their families.
Asked about the response from his residents to his intention to retire from politics and run for president, he said: “It was a mixture of sadness and wishing me well, and vice versa."
But Mr Tharman reiterated that “Jurong will be okay” and his residents would be “very well taken care of”.
He also praised his fellow Jurong GRC MPs for their “exceptional” work and the “character of their relationships with the public”.
After Mr Tharman announced his intention to run for the presidency and retire from politics, observers noted that Jurong GRC may lack a “solid anchor” minister.
Currently, there is no requirement under the law for a by-election to be called if an MP of a GRC resigns. In 2017, Mdm Halimah resigned from her roles as Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC MP and Speaker of Parliament in order to stand in the reserved Presidential Election.
Mr Zaqy Mohamad took on the role of adviser to Mdm Halimah’s former ward while continuing as MP for Chua Chu Kang GRC.
Mr Tharman, who is also Coordinating Minister for Social Policies, on Thursday informed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of his decision to retire from politics and all his positions in government. He also said he intends to resign from the People's Action Party.
He plans to step down on Jul 7.
Mr Tharman’s decision to run for the presidency comes more than a week after Mdm Halimah said she will not stand for re-election. Her term ends on Sep 13.
Dear Mr Tharman, are you really so heartless?
“Singapore’s presidency a consolation prize for Tharman” — Prominent historian
Calling Mr Tharman Singapore's most popular politician as well as the smartest and "most imaginative reformer in Singapore’s Cabinet in recent decades, Dr Barr wrote: "Opinion polls routinely name Tharman as the best candidate for prime minister
SINGAPORE: Echoing the regret many Singaporeans have expressed over the fact that veteran politician Tharman Shanmugaratnam is planning to contest the presidential election instead of taking what is perceived in the eyes of the public to be his “rightful” place as Singapore’s next Prime Minister, prominent historian Michael Barr has called the presidency a “consolation prize” for Mr Tharman in a new essay published by the East Asia Forum.
Dr Barr, an Associate Professor teaching International Relations at Adelaide’s Flinders University, is widely considered an authority on Singapore’s political landscape, given his significant contributions to the academic discourse surrounding the city-state’s history and governance. He has written and commented extensively on Singapore’s politics and history and has published several books on Singapore’s ruling elite.
In an essay published on Tuesday (25 July), Dr Barr suggested that Mr Tharman is gunning for the presidency as he has no prospect of political advancement given the ruling party’s view that Singapore is not ready for a non-Chinese PM.
Calling Mr Tharman Singapore’s most popular politician as well as the smartest and “most imaginative reformer in Singapore’s Cabinet in recent decades, Dr Barr wrote:
“Opinion polls routinely name Tharman as the best candidate for prime minister. This is particularly so since Lee announced in 2017 that he planned to step down in 2019, notwithstanding the reality that more than five years later, Lee remains prime minister.
“Given his popularity and mastery of economics and public policy, Tharman should have been an obvious candidate to succeed Lee. But in 2008, Lee declared that only a candidate from Singapore’s majority Chinese community was acceptable. This verdict was confirmed in 2019 by Lee’s then-designated successor, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat.”
Pointing out that Mr Tharman’s bid for the presidency is unsurprising, Dr Barr said, “In the same year, Tharman stepped down as Deputy Prime Minister to make way for Heng. This is the lot of a talented Indian in Singapore’s supposedly meritocratic society.”
“On 8 June 2023, Tharman announced that he was stepping down from Cabinet to run for President later in the year. This should not have been a surprise, given that he had no prospect of advancement in Cabinet.”
The notion that Singaporeans are not ready for a minority PM has been repeated by Singapore’s top leaders, over the decades. In the 1980s, founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said he had considered Cabinet Minister S Dhanabalan to be the next PM but decided that the country was not ready for an Indian head of government.
Current PM and Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s son Lee Hsien Loong echoed his father’s views in 2008, shortly after Barack Obama got elected as the first black President of the United States of America.
He said: “Will it happen soon? I don’t think so, because you have to win votes. And these sentiments—who votes for whom, and what makes him identify with that person—these are sentiments which will not disappear completely for a long time, even if people do not talk about it, even if people wish they did not feel it.”
In March 2019, Heng Swee Keat – identified as PM Lee’s successor then – also asserted that the older generation is unprepared to accept a minority PM.
Noting that many students might be happy to have a non-Chinese PM, Mr Heng said that his “own experience in walking the ground, in working with different people from all walks of life, is that the views — if you go by age and by life experience — would be very different.”
Mr Heng added that he witnessed Singapore’s reluctance to accept a non-Chinese PM as he observed the elections: “I can tell you that it is not easy because it triggers all the feelings about race, which are not obvious. But for an election, it becomes an issue.”
Survey results over the years have only debunked the PAP leaders’ perspectives.
Days after Mr Heng said that he does not believe Singaporeans are ready for a non-Chinese PM, a whopping 92 per cent of 19,900 individuals responding to a viral Facebook poll voted for Mr Tharman to succeed PM Lee and become the nation’s next head of Government, instead of Mr Heng.
The sentiments Singaporeans expressed in the latest poll matched the result of The Independent Singapore’s poll in 2017 when we asked our readers who should be the next PM. Out of 2,316 responses, most (1882 votes) voted for Mr Tharman to lead Singapore into the future.
A Blackbox survey commissioned by Yahoo Singapore confirmed the results of our poll. In that survey, 69% of 897 respondents said they would support Tharman as a candidate to become PM.
In 2016, an IPS survey showed that the majority of Singaporeans were already accepting of a non-Chinese PM. 60.8 per cent of respondents said they would accept a Malay Prime Minister, while 64.3 per cent said they would accept an Indian head of government.
A similar survey conducted more recently by CNA-IPS in 2022 shows that Singaporeans have only grown more open to the idea of a non-Chinese Prime Minister. Last year, 69.6 per cent of respondents said they would accept a Malay PM, and 70.5 per cent said they would accept an Indian PM.
In his essay, Dr Barr said that backing Mr Tharman for president “solves several problems” for PM Lee. Pointing to what he perceives to be a longstanding “patron-client” relationship between the PM and Mr Tharman, Dr Barr wrote:
“The presidency provides an august reward for Tharman’s loyalty and stunted executive mobility. Tharman’s popularity also guarantees Lee will not be embarrassed by the spectacle of an establishment candidate almost losing to a strong alternative candidate.
This nearly happened in the presidential election of 2011. The risk had already been reduced by the government’s successful effort to drive Lee’s estranged brother, Lee Hsien Yang, out of the country under threat of legal harassment.”
He added, “Tharman’s loyalty to Lee ensures there will be no repetition of the awkwardness of 1993–1999, when another former deputy prime minister, President Ong Teng Cheong, stunned his former colleagues by taking his constitutional duty to protect Singapore’s capital reserves seriously.”
Despite this, Dr Barr noted that Mr Tharman’s retirement also brings deep disadvantages for the ruling party as it would lose a strong election campaigner and policymaker who could help stave off potential electoral losses caused by a recent spate of scandals involving PAP MPs and cost-of-living issues.
Dr Barr said: “Lee could have kept Tharman’s talent and popular profile in Cabinet and on the campaign trail if he had been willing to appoint him as Singapore’s first non-Chinese prime minister. But racial considerations pushed that option off the table, leaving the presidency as the consolation prize.”
https://theindependent.sg/singapores-presidency-a-consolation-prize-for-tharman-prominent-historian/
Tharman formally launches bid to be Singapore's 'President for a new era'
SINGAPORE: Singapore's former senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Wednesday (Jul 26) said he intended to be "a President for a new era" as he officially launched his platform for the presidential bid.
“I stepped into this race because I feel very strongly in the need to evolve Singapore's culture, some of our norms and the way we go about working with each other so that we remain a shining spot in the world,” said Mr Tharman at a press conference at the York Hotel.
The official launch comes more than a month after Mr Tharman first announced his intention to run for President. On Jun 8, he informed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that he was putting himself forward as a candidate, and in doing so leaving politics and the People’s Action Party.
Accompanied by his wife Jane Yumiko Ittogi on Wednesday, Mr Tharman outlined challenges facing Singapore both globally and domestically and emphasised that the nation's real challenge was to avoid becoming a divided society.
"If I'm fortunate enough to be elected as President, I pledge to bring my full experience and capabilities on the ground nationally and internationally, to serve as your President for this new and more challenging era."
Mr Tharman said his 22 years in politics had given him ample experience in unifying people, an important role for the President.
"When we talk about being a unifying figure, I do not say this rhetorically or just as an aspiration but I speak from a real track record," he said.
"That includes the track record of respecting different views, including different political leanings and constantly trying to find common ground."
Mr Tharman stepped down in early July as Senior Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for Social Policies and Member of Parliament for Jurong, as well as from all his government positions.
The 66-year-old was an economist and civil servant, mainly at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, before joining politics in 2001. He has served as Minister for Education and Finance, and was Deputy Prime Minister from 2011 to 2019.
He has also held prominent posts at international organisations including the International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum and the United Nations.
Mr Tharman said he would also fulfil other responsibilities of the presidency such as safeguarding the reserves, citing his experience in government and politics over the years.
But he said that more importantly, he would bring a "more basic orientation" of integrity and independence of mind, which he has been known for.
While he will no longer be in Cabinet, he will be the same person, he said.
"I don't have to change my colours like a chameleon. I'm the same person with the same integrity and same independence of mind, and that remains critical for the role of the President," he said.
More at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/pe2023-president-election-tharman-shanmugaratnam-launch-3655191
Presidential Election: Not PAP's fault that Tharman is a strong candidate, says Shanmugam
I definitely second this.
Passing of the baton from one puppet head of state to another, well done indeed PAP ;)
讲到连树上的小鸟🐦都会飞下来
Talk is dirt cheap. Yet when push comes to shove, almost everyone choose to bail out.
No promise to probe the PAP government over the true extent of our national reserves no talk
A REFEREE? ZHUN BOH?