Reflections on the 2011 Presidential Elections

The last two weeks have been pretty hectic for me. With both of my parents out of town and my sis settling in into her new life in Vancouver, I’ve been occupying my time with school, training and the household chores. The Presidential elections are just around the corner and truth be told there hasn’t been as much coverage online about it in comparison with the General Elections a couple of months back. What is even more intriguing perhaps is the lack of knowledge a significant number of Singaporeans have on the presidential candidates and more importantly the duties of what the elected presidency encompasses, despite the 2001 Presidential elections being an unprecedented event with 4 contenders vying for the top job.

I started this note with the intention of (re)introducing the 4 presidential hopefuls and listing out the pros and cons of each individual candidate and what I feel about them and who I believe should occupy the hot seat. However, as I learned about the candidates, and more importantly what the people thought about the presidential elections, the more I realized how severe the ramifications of having an apathetic and “uneducated” electorate were. As I browsed through the couple of popular online forums, I realized that a significant number online didn’t really know just exactly what the duties of the president were and what were his limitations.

Before I go any further, I just like to add in a short disclaimer. This note is not an academic essay. I have cut and paste huge large parts of it (2 big parts to be specific). What I hope to achieve at the end of this entry is to leave you with enough information to understand what you’re voting for come polling day (roles and duties of the president) and have a better understanding on the dynamics of this upcoming PE (I am linking Catherine Lim’s blog post here). We live in a very busy society and it is perfectly understandable how a ridiculous number of people will be going to the polls with no idea just who they’re voting for. Perfectly understandable indeed. Let us begin with the roles and duties of the elected Presidency.

From Annex D: Statement by the Minister of Law on the Elected President, 10th June 2011

Singapore has a Parliamentary system of government, not a Presidential one. The President is the Head of State, not the Head of Government. The Prime Minister is the Head of Government and has the authority and responsibility to govern Singapore. The Constitution clearly defines the role and scope of the President. He has custodial powers, not executive powers. In other words, he can veto or block Government actions in specified areas, but he has no role to advance his own policy agenda. National policies and running the Government are the responsibility of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. This is so for all policies, whether they concern security and defence, immigration and population, or housing and social safety nets. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are accountable to Parliament, where policies are debated and endorsed, and ultimately to voters, who decide every five years who to elect to Parliament and to govern Singapore.

The President’s veto powers over the Government are limited to specific areas:

1. Protection of past reserves, i.e. reserves accumulated during previous terms of office of Government;
2. Appointment of key personnel; and
3. ISA detentions, CPIB investigations and any restraining order in connection with the maintenance of religious harmony.

On all other matters, under the Constitution the President must act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet. In addition, the President is required to consult the Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA) when exercising his veto powers in connection with reserves and appointments.

The President’s veto powers are an important check against a profligate government squandering the nation’s reserves, or undermining the integrity of the public service. That is why the people directly elect the President: to have the mandate to carry out his custodial role, and the moral authority to say no if necessary to the elected government.

Protection of Past Reserves

The Constitution protects the past reserves of the Government and key statutory boards and government companies (‘5th Schedule’ entities) like the CPF Board, MAS, HDB, GIC and Temasek. The reserves include physical assets like land and buildings as well as financial assets like cash, securities and bonds. The Government of the day can only spend past reserves with the approval of the President.

However, the President does not direct the operations of these statutory boards and government companies. In particular, he is not empowered to direct the investment strategies of GIC and Temasek. The investment strategies of GIC and Temasek are the responsibility of their respective Boards and managements. The Government’s role is to appoint suitable and qualified individuals to the two Boards. The President’s role is to approve Board appointments proposed by the Government. The President also receives the audited annual accounts of GIC and Temasek, and has access to any of the information that is available to their boards. This system of governance has allowed the GIC and Temasek to operate professionally and to achieve good returns over time, comparable to other reputable global investors.

Appointment of key personnel

To safeguard the integrity of the Public Service, the President has the discretion to refuse the appointment of a person to certain key positions in the public service. He can also refuse to concur with the removal of persons from these key positions. These include the Attorney General, Chairman and members of the Public Service Commission, the Auditor-General, and the chiefs of the Armed Forces and Police. The President has similar veto powers over the appointment of the Chief Justice and Judges, and board members and CEOs of the 5th Schedule entities.

ISA detentions, CPIB investigations and restraining orders in connection with the maintenance of religious harmony

The President’s concurrence is required for further detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) if Cabinet disagrees with the ISA advisory board’s advice that the detainee should be released. His concurrence also allows the Director of the Corrupt Practice Investigation Bureau to continue with investigations even if the Prime Minister has refused permission to conduct the investigations. The President can cancel, vary or confirm any restraining order made under the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, if the decision of Cabinet is against the recommendations of the Presidential Council for Religious Harmony.

In summary, the President is all but perhaps a signatory authorizing the usage of Singapore savings and can only veto it upon consultation with the presidential council. Though Presidential approval is needed when appointing the top people of the public service, he can only consider and approve names handed to him and not pick his own people. Invoking the ICA, pardoning criminals etc, all that can only be done upon consultation with the Presidential council. Though the 1991 amendment has given the President additional powers, he is still largely expected to dance to the tune of the ruling government. Having settled question of what the roles and duties of the president are, the next question some might ask is… why an elected presidency?

When the PAP government failed to make a clear sweep of all the seats in parliament for the first time in the 1984 elections and the subsequent 1988 elections, the general consensus amongst the ruling party was that these seats were lost as a result of the people “experimenting” with their votes and wanting to have their voices heard in parliament. It was then decided that there was a need for another, to hold a second key to the cabinet, that other being the elected president of Singapore. Prior to the amendments in the 1991 constitution, the role of the president was largely ceremonial. After the amendments, the role of the president was largely custodial. It is important to realize that the president’s main duties are to safeguard our financial reserves and of the integrity of our public service. The president was and is not a counter-balance to the government and that role remains exclusively the duty of the opposition.

Perhaps it’s best if I leave you with the following blog entry that so elegantly pens down the very essence of what I intended to write about the dynamics and ground sentiment of this upcoming PE if I weren’t so busy sweeping the garden and catching up with my ever growing pile of readings. ☺

The Elected Presidency: More Of The Same Or A Whole New Game?

When in 1991, the People’s Action Party (PAP) leaders decided to change the system of a government-appointed President of Singapore to that of a popularly elected one, they could never have foreseen the electoral chaos their decision would cause twenty years later.

For at that time, the amendments in the constitution, by all accounts, fitted in well with the government’s purpose. Firstly, the setting up of a president with a popular mandate to check the excesses of an administration grown incompetent or corrupt, had all the laudable marks of a healthily functioning democracy, that would surely go down well with the people.

Secondly, the veto powers of the president would by no means make him a source of annoyance to a PAP government used to having its own way, because of two cautionary provisions built into the constitution. The first was his prior clearance, before he could stand for election, by a government-appointed body that would see to it that he was acceptable, in the first place, to the government itself, in terms of his experience, intellectual acumen, moral character, personality, etc. The second and more important provision in the constitution, was his being subjected, after his election as president, to precisely stipulated limits of his custodial role as to its scope and demeanour, to ensure that the government would always have the final say.

Thirdly, the newly invested presidential power which would not likely be used on a PAP leadership that had always prided itself on its competence and incorruptibility, would nevertheless be a strong safeguard against any future government inclined towards excess, and especially against any rogue opposition party coming into power and ready to squander the nation’s vast reserves in populist schemes to curry favour with the people.

In short, the amendments in the constitution for an Elected President (EP) would greatly enhance the traditional role of the president, and increase its usefulness. Thus, in addition to being the ceremonial head of a nation, a symbol of democratic processes at work, a focus for national pride and emotional outpouring, and the nation’s proud representative abroad in the illustrious company of royalty and dignitaries, he would also be the moral conscience of the government, albeit a discreetly quiet one. The EP would thus be a luminous star in a continuing tripartite, president-government-people relationship of unity and harmony.

But the General Election of 2011 (GE 2011) has burst asunder all the smooth lines of this pattern and reduced it to a chaos of disunities and disjunctions that, in the present run-up to the Presidential Election on 27 August, continue to confuse and vex voters. These fall broadly into the pro-PAP group, the 60% who voted for the party in GE 2011, and the anti-PAP group, the 40% who gave their vote to the opposition, both groups being now expected to give their support, accordingly, to the presidential candidate who is either associated with the PAP, or distanced from and independent of it.

The four contenders, as they go about canvassing for votes, are clearly lined along an ideological spectrum, with the strongest PAP associate at one end, and the strongest PAP critic at the other. All the highly-charged, hotly debated issues of the campaign seem to devolve into one common, fundamental question: Exactly what is the role of the EP?

It is a reflection of the latent contradictions of the constitution, only now emerging, that the very same sacrosanct document is quoted by both opposing sides to support their standpoints. Thus, the pro-PAP voters, backing the presidential hopeful who has been publicly endorsed by the government and the various pro-establishment unions and organizations, are saying: ‘The constitution stipulates the president’s custodial role very clearly, which means that he must work closely and harmoniously with the government for the common good.’ The anti-PAP voters, supporting those presidential hopefuls who they perceive will act independently, even adversarially, are saying with equal confidence, ‘The popular mandate of the president, for which the constitution was changed in the first place, would make no sense if he did not represent the people who had voted directly for him. Therefore, he must be the voice of the people and stand up against the government, if necessary, to protect their interests.’

The dilemma for voters boils down to a choice between two situations that could not be more contrasted: to keep the status quo and thus ensure continuity and stability, or to opt for change without which there can be no progress. So: stay on the terra firma of the known, or venture into the terra incognita of the unknown? Have more of the same, or go for a whole new game?

Ironically, the same constitution is perceived as providing equal logical, legal and moral backing for either of these two diametrically opposed stances. Even more ironically, the constitution which places the EP above politics, has caused him to be the centre of the most divisive political contest seen in Singapore. It would be difficult, after such an election, to see the new President of Singapore in an aura of magisterial bearing, dignified detachment and inspirational benevolence. For he would have been permanently tainted by the mean-spiritedness and low-mindedness that are an inevitable part of the hype and hoopla of a political campaign.

Among the anti-PAP group, there is a specially vocal, bold, single-minded band which, though in the minority, warrants special attention, because they have, through their persistent, assiduous and skilful exploitation of the power of the social media, successfully channeled the discontent and anger of GE 2011 into the Presidential election. Their rallying cry which must have great resonance for large numbers of disaffected Singaporeans is: No more of the same PAP dominance, no more of the same PAP arrogance and insensitivity to the needs of the people! We need a whole new game, with the rules re-written by ourselves, to serve the people’s interests, not theirs! We can do this through the EP because we gave him our vote!

There are three special kinds of emotional appeal that this anti-PAP group has adroitly crafted out of the outcomes of GE 2011:

• urging the people to replicate their astonishing triumph and spectacular gains in GE 2011, by reminding them that, for the first time in electoral history, they were able to make the powerful PAP government buckle to their demands for changes in unpopular policies, including the hated ministerial salaries; convincing them that the coming Presidential Election represents their best possible chance to reinforce and extend these gains, a chance that moreover, may never come again, at least not for another five years.
• emphasizing to the people the sheer unfairness of a system by which the unprecedented 40% vote which they had given the opposition had converted into a paltry six seats in Parliament; assuring them that this gross disproportion could be redressed by an actively independent EP.
• pointing out to the people that despite the avowals for change, the PAP administration is still very much mired in its old mindset, and so far seems to be more interested in making personnel rather than policy changes; that despite his resignation from the cabinet, the former, long-feared Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew is still very much around, judging by the public comments and pronouncements he is still making, including his recent one reiterating the necessity of bringing in foreign talent, which had been a contentious GE 2011 issue.

The increasingly bolder anti-PAP camp, whose vociferousness and hence very palpable presence makes them a more effective force for change than the silent majority, is a new species of political animal that was created by the shock events of GE 2011. It has tasted freedom and smelt blood. It can no longer be muzzled. Indeed, it seems by now to be unstoppable and may well prove to be the most intractable force for the PAP government to deal with in the future. The EP who might have been savaged by this feral creature during the hustings, will have no choice but to placate and make peace with it.

The coming Presidential Election on 27 August will be watched like no other, because the political landscape that has changed so amazingly after GE 2011, may well see a second transformation.

- Catherine Lim

That marks the end of this what I hope has been a rather meaningful read. Happy voting!!

PS: Before I truly conclude however, I would just like to draw your attention to just one of the many contentious issues brought up over the past week.

In the Presidential Elections Act, it is stated that a candidate must have for a period of not less than three years held office as a as chairman of the board of directors or CEO of a company incorporated or registered under the Companies Act with a paid-up capital of at least $100 million or its equivalent in foreign currency or in any other similar or comparable position of seniority and responsibility in any other organization or department of equivalent size or complexity in the public or private sector which has given him such experience and ability in administering and managing financial affairs as to enable him to carry out effectively the functions and duties of the office of President. Mr Tony Tan retired as the Executive Director of GIC only on the 23rd of June 2011… Either GIC doesn’t cut it as a department of “equivalent size or complexity” Food for thought eh...