President Ong Teng Cheong (foreground right) hosted a lunch at the Istana for former President Wee Kim Wee (left) and Mr S R Nathan, after Mr Nathan had been elected but before he took office, in August 1999. PHOTO: MICA COLLECTION, COURTESY OF NAS

With Mr Ong Teng Cheong being Singapore’s first elected President, the upcoming Presidential election in September should be considered an open election. That is National Solidarity Party’s (NSP) Secretary General, Mr Lim Tean’s message in a joint statement he wrote on his Facebook page.
More than 500 people have signed Mr Lim’s joint statement, initially signed by Lim Tean, Tan Kin Lian, Goh Meng Seng and Syafarin Sarif, that will be submitted to the Singapore government.

“The next Presidential election in September this year should be an open election as there have been only 4 elected Presidents since the Elected Presidency scheme came into effect, with Mr Ong Teng Cheong being our first elected President. We do not know of any ordinary Singaporean who has taken an opposing view,” Mr Lim wrote.

In November last year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the next Presidential Election due in 2017 will be reserved for Malay candidates, based on the hiatus-triggered model. Speaking on the Elected Presidency (EP) scheme, PM Lee said, “That means if a qualified Malay candidate steps up to run, Singapore will have a Malay president again. This would be our first after more than 46 years, since our first president Encik Yusof Ishak.”
While it was previously unclear which past president the Government would begin counting the period of five continuous terms from, based on the advice of Attorney General Chambers (AGC), PM Lee’s stated that the Government will start counting the five continuous terms from the term of President Wee Kim Wee.
Subsequently, when asked in Parliament by MPs of Workers’ Party, the government had declined to reveal the details of AGC’s advice.
Earlier in May, Dr Tan Cheng Bock announced that the High Court had accepted his application to seek the Court’s determination on whether the piece of legislation – that counts President Wee Kim Wee as the first Elected Presidency term for the purposes of calling the upcoming election a reserved election – is consistent with Singapore’s constitution.
In Queen’s Counsel Lord David Pannick’s opinion (who is the constitutional lawyer Dr Tan Cheng Bock had sought legal answers from), the advice of the Attorney-General of counting Wee Kim Wee as the first elected President was wrong. ” We must now await the determination of this issue by the Supreme Court,” Mr Lim said.
In the joint statement consolidated on 11 May 2017, Mr Lim gathered like-minded Singaporeans of the opinion that the next Presidential Election should indeed be an open election, to add their names onto his joint statement.
In his Facebook post, Mr Lim said that “there was never a call by any Singaporean of any ethnic group for our next President to be a Malay”. He further said that the scheme for the election was “not cobbled together hurriedly as has been suggested, thereby necessitating substantial changes at this time”.
Mr Lim explained the chain of events, spanning seven years from April 1984, when then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew first brought up the scheme during his walkabout at his Tanjong Pagar Constituency to January 1991 when the Bill was finally passed into law.
The NSP leader went on to say that in the year following the last Presidential election of 2011, no People’s Action Party (PAP) member ever expressed concern that too many years had passed without the nation having a Malay President. This was up until the issue surfaced, Mr Lim said, in the President’s speech in January 2016.
“If this issue is of such grave national importance as the PAP and the Prime Minister have made it out to be, why was this issue not put before the Singapore people in the last General Elections held in September 2015? And why has this issue not been put before the Singapore people in a referendum?” Mr Lim asked.
In a video posted by Mr Lim the next day, he sought the support of viewers to insert their name in the joint statement to “protect our Constitution”.
In his four minutes video, the Secretary General said that Singaporeans have realised that the “economic glitter” the People’s Action Party (PAP) have often spoken about, is not something that has appeared to be true, especially since the government “is able to increase prices and the cost of living without justification”.
Mr Lim took references from the elderly in Singapore, still having to work, clean plates, and wash toilets, and not being able to retire gracefully as they are either unable to access their CPF and/or feeling that the monthly payments from the CPF is “not sufficient for subsistence living”.
Mr Lim also spoke about Singaporeans seeing their jobs taken away from foreigners, “and the government allowing it”.
Readers who are keen to also sign Mr Lim’s petition can do so here.

 

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

Community groups and civil societies call for end of investigation into youth climate activists; urge gov't to serious reconsider public assembly laws

In an open letter today (14 April), various community groups and civil…

“阿谀奉承未深究问题” 前海时记者抨击主流媒体短板

因前雇主樟宜机场集团主席廖文良的指控,印尼籍前女佣巴蒂·莉雅妮(Parti Liyani)遭卷入长达四年的官司。直至本月4日,才获高庭平反,推翻判决改判无罪。 前海峡时报资深记者Goh Eng Yeow感叹,主流媒体并未针对此事“深入探究问题”,反而是选择“阿谀奉承”。 2016年,46岁的印尼籍前女佣巴蒂被开除,廖家父子在两日后又报警,指控巴蒂偷走5万元财物,包括价值2.5万元名表、Prada的名牌包和Gucci墨镜等。2019年3月20日芭蒂被判罪名成立, 然而,今年9月,法官陈成安推翻了上述判决,指廖家父子报警,可能存在“不当意图”(improper motives),被告有充分理由投诉人力部,而廖家“先下手为强”将他开除。 质问主流媒体没有深入探究问题 对此,Goh在脸书上发文,指主流媒体只会一味的刻画廖文良美好的一面,并晒出一张《海峡时报》的文章,内容为廖文良谈及自己一直都聘雇比自己更优秀的人。该篇报道于去年出版。 “所以我从我的前主管Alan John(已退休)那里看到这长篇大论的文章,想问为何没有再去质问,曾在去年以梦想和卑微背景打动我们的廖文良,问问他为什么?”…

Pump prices up at Singapore petrol kiosks

America’s largest traded oil company ExxonMobil has increased its pump prices by…

【选举】人力部、卫生部联合发出五则更正指示!

指责民主党主席、传染病学教授淡马亚的言论有不实之处,卫生部和人力部,透过“防假消息法”办公处,对包括主流媒体在内的单位,发出多达五则更正指示! 接到更正指示的单位包括:亚洲新闻台(CNA)、国立大学协会(NUSS)、网络公民和新叙事(New Naratif),这也是首次有主流媒体接到指示。 至于被指含有“不实陈述”的短片,包括国立大学协会(NUSS)在本月3日发布的短片、本社在4日发布的脸书贴文和短片、本社的网络直播、亚洲新闻台的文章和新叙事的音频。 联合声明中指出,淡马亚指责人力部,未咨询医疗专家意见下,劝阻雇主带工人做冠病检测等。文告解释,卫生部是在2月初,接到本地医院的通知,指有雇主带工人到医院急诊部,作冠病检测。 为此,卫生部、人力部等政府部门,在2月12日和19日发文,劝请雇主不要带健康员工到医院检测,让医疗设施用来照顾身体不适病人。 文告也强调人力部并没有劝阻雇主带工人做测试,而是除非是病危状况,否则若工友身体不适,应送工友先看全科医生,由医生来审核病人是否需送医院做检测。