Minister of Home Affairs and Law, K Shanmugam has posted on his facebook account on Saturday evening (22 Oct), writing that he will be making a police report on the allegations upon him by internet news site, StatesTimesReview (STR).
“The allegations are a complete fabrication, and I will be making a police report.” wrote Mr K Shanmugam.
The minister wrote that the website had posted an anonymous article, saying that he had considered Eurasians as Indians under the “Presidential candidacy law” in response to Mr Benett Theseria, President of the Eurasian Association of Singapore.
The article also stated that Mr K Shanmugam has said, “Indians outnumbered Eurasians 20 to 1. So it makes it difficult for (there to be) an Eurasian president.”, which he also denied. Instead, the comment was made by Mr Benett in an earlier session of a forum on the Elected Presidency.
The forum which was organised by the Institute of Policy Studies’ (IPS) Forum was to touch on the proposed Reforms to the Elected Presidency System and was held on Friday, 21 Oct at the Padang Room, Raffles City Convention Centre from 2.00 pm to 5.30 pm.
Speakers at the Forum were meant to provide views and analysis of the recently released report by the Constitutional Commission on the Elected President and the government’s White Paper in response to it. Mr K Shanmugam was one of the speakers in the second part of the forum while Mr Benett Theseria was one of the speakers in the earlier half of the forum.
The minister flatly denies any of the allegation made by the website is true. He wrote that he said nothing of the sort that has been attributed to him during the 90 minutes of his session and that he had not been asked about the matter of Eurasians at all, by Mr Theseria or anyone else.
He also noted that he had not made any comments on Eurasians.
“The article also mentions a number of other things that were supposedly discussed – most of them are either completely untrue, or half truths, and misleading.” wrote the minister.
Eurasian Association’s view on the proposed reforms on Elected Presidency on reserved elections
Mr Benett had earlier voiced his concern at the second Constitutional Commission hearing on the elected presidency, over having a restricted election based on one’s race.
He said, “We’re not in favour of the restricted election where… we have a minority candidate stand (after a few terms),”.
“We feel it goes against the grain of our multiracial philosophy and it may create unhappiness, forcing people to vote for a single individual who is of an ethnic minority.”
The Eurasian Association instead proposed having GRC-style presidential polls instead to achieve this aim.
He also said stipulating that only minority candidates can run could create keen competition among minority communities and divide them.
