Halimah Yacob named Singapore's first Malay president

[AndrewJin]

S/pore govt is very smart. With her as president, they will kill two birds with a single stone and (1) first woman president (2) from a minority group... has been included and represented at the highest level. Though the main authority lies with the PM so president is mostly ceremonial position.

Agree

 

[Rajaraja Chola]

No idea how she is only Ethnic Malay. Her father is Indian Tamil Muslim and her mother is an Malay. An Indian-Malay heritage head again as Singapore President.

 

[beijingwalker]

Figure head, no power.

 

[sinait]

WHy?

The rules are changed recently so that another candidate who was very likely to win was disqualified to stand for election.
He is Dr Tan Cheng Bock, formerly from the ruling party but fell out of favor.
Presidential reservation for our minority is acceptable, but should start only from the next election.
Its problematic if the ruling party can change rules at will to the coming election to eliminate opposition candidates.
.

Which article did I post?
That's a nice step taken by the state of Singapore.
Singapore is meritocracy so it fits the bill perfectly.
Clearly, the state thinks she has fulfilled this requirement.

Presidential reservation for minority is acceptable but this step is a nasty one.
Singapore is meritocracy but not when it involves politics and power of the ruling party.
Half Indian(Indian father) For Show President whose biggest achievement is having 5 children.
.

 

[Nilgiri]

No idea how she is only Ethnic Malay. Her father is Indian Tamil Muslim and her mother is an Malay. An Indian-Malay heritage head again as Singapore President.

Malay descent rule is strange one.

Mahathir also had Malayali father, yet he is considered pure bumiputra malay (I guess he proved which race he was loyal to first and foremost action wise) etc etc.

It's a walkover due to the restrictions. She wasn't elected.

It's just a ceremonial post anyway. Its for optics and Singapore feels it needs to be more SJW type now. What to do really about it?

Did you even read the article you posted? It was reserved for the Malays and anyone outside the public sector who wish to contest needs to manage a company worth at least $500m.

This was handled badly for sure. I don't know why they complicated by having all these rules for those "outside public sector". Just make it simple, have to be public sector employee + experienced...period....that way PAP can do whatever reservation BS they want without acting as a teaser for those its going to reject anyway.

Over time reforming to full merit based system (which was original reason for Singapore to be independent in first place) has to permeate to its highest politics in PAP too....but unfortunately I feel they still lean on "optics" strongly still, esp since its not a economy related/policy role anyway.

 

[ohmrlobalobayeh]

No idea how she is only Ethnic Malay. Her father is Indian Tamil Muslim and her mother is an Malay. An Indian-Malay heritage head again as Singapore President.

not a problem. Singapore is a parliamentary democracy, whereby the real powers lies with the Prime Minister(the exact opposite of the US- whereby the supreme powers lies with the CEO of the state- the President), whilst the President is restricted to ceremonial roles like dining with visitng foreign dignitaries, signing treasury documents and of cos- playing golf

hence the reason why u can only hear of news concerning the Prime Minister way more than u would heard of the President in Singapore.

It's a way maintaining of racial harmony- to send out a point to the minority folks that they are not oppressed(and they really are'nt)- hence why S.R Nathan was an ex-president.

On the other hand, all of the democratically-elected Presidents(put to the ballot) have all been Chinese.

Wee Kim Wee (simplified Chinese: 黄金辉; traditional Chinese: 黃金輝; pinyin: Huáng Jīn Huī; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ûiⁿ Kim-hui; 4 November 1915 – 2 May 2005), JP, BBM, PJG, KGCB,DK (First Class), DUT (First Class), was a Singaporean politician who served as the fourth President of Singapore. He worked as a journalist from 1945 to 1973 before he was offered the post of High Commissioner of Singapore to Malaysia by the government. He then served as Ambassador to Japan in September 1980 and also as Ambassador to South Korea in February 1981 before returning to Singapore in April 1984 and took up the position of Chairman of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. Wee was appointed as the President of Singapore in 1985 and was sworn in on September 1985, where he was in office for two terms until September 1, 1993.[1]

Ong Teng Cheong (Chinese: 王鼎昌; pinyin: Wáng Dǐng Chāng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ông Tíng-chhiong; 22 January 1936 – 8 February 2002), was a Singaporean politician and businessman who was President of Singapore from 1993 to 1999. Prior to taking office as President, he was a member of the ruling People's Action Party and served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1985 to 1993. He was Singapore's first directly elected president, serving a six-year term from 1 September 1993 to 31 August 1999.[1]

Tony Tan Keng Yam (simplified Chinese: 陈庆炎; traditional Chinese: 陳慶炎; pinyin: Chén Qìngyán; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Khèng-iām; born 7 February 1940) is a Singaporeanpolitician who was the seventh President of Singapore, holding office from 2011 to 2017. He served as a Member of the Singapore Parliament from 1979 to 2006 and held various ministerial portfolios, including defence, finance, Arts, trade and industry. In the late 1980s, Lee Kuan Yew mentioned Tan as his first choice to succeed himself as Prime Minister of Singapore, but he declined.[1] He left the Cabinet from 1991 to 1995 to lead the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation before returning as Deputy Prime Minister, a position he held until 2005.

 

[shadows888]

shouldn't this be in the south asia section?

 

[Mista]

Malay descent rule is strange one.

Mahathir also had Malayali father, yet he is considered pure bumiputra malay (I guess he proved which race he was loyal to first and foremost action wise) etc etc.



It's just a ceremonial post anyway. Its for optics and Singapore feels it needs to be more SJW type now. What to do really about it?



This was handled badly for sure. I don't know why they complicated by having all these rules for those "outside public sector". Just make it simple, have to be public sector employee + experienced...period....that way PAP can do whatever reservation BS they want without acting as a teaser for those its going to reject anyway.

Over time reforming to full merit based system (which was original reason for Singapore to be independent in first place) has to permeate to its highest politics in PAP too....but unfortunately I feel they still lean on "optics" strongly still, esp since its not a economy related/policy role anyway.

No, race representation is just an excuse. They just want their own people to take the position of the President and take control of all state powers.

 

[Nilgiri]

No, race representation is just an excuse. They just want their own people to take the position of the President and take control of all state powers.

Dude its just president. Ceremonial one lah.

 

[sinait]

shouldn't this be in the south asia section?

Singapore is in South East Asia.
.

It's just a ceremonial post anyway. Its for optics and Singapore feels it needs to be more SJW type now. What to do really about it?

This was handled badly for sure. I don't know why they complicated by having all these rules for those "outside public sector". Just make it simple, have to be public sector employee + experienced...period....that way PAP can do whatever reservation BS they want without acting as a teaser for those its going to reject anyway.

Over time reforming to full merit based system (which was original reason for Singapore to be independent in first place) has to permeate to its highest politics in PAP too....but unfortunately I feel they still lean on "optics" strongly still, esp since its not a economy related/policy role anyway.

Pay wise, its sgd$1,540,000 per annum or 40x pay of President of India.
Not too bad for not doing much.
Anyway its problematic to change rules at the last minute to eliminate candidates with a near definite chance of winning not to the ruling party's liking.
.

 

[Nilgiri]

Anyway its problematic to change rules at the last minute to eliminate candidates with a near definite chance of winning not to the ruling party's liking.

Yes this is very bad for sure. Precedent it sets is even worse. Do the candidates who were rejected because of this have a legal case they can pursue?

 

[sinait]

Yes this is very bad for sure. Precedent it sets is even worse. Do the candidates who were rejected because of this have a legal case they can pursue?

Yes.
But what to expect from any legal case against the government in our legal system.
Anyway our President is not wholly ceremonial.
He can block the use of funds from our reserves.
That is if opposition wins election, they will be out of funds from day 1 if the President block the release of funds.
To put another way, any new Government must only use money earned by them unless the President release funds accumulated by previous government or from reserves.
.

 

[war&peace]

Singapore is in South East Asia.
.

Pay wise, its sgd$1,540,000 per annum or 40x pay of President of India.
Not too bad for not doing much.
Anyway its problematic to change rules at the last minute to eliminate candidates with a near definite chance of winning not to the ruling party's liking.
.

But I guess an s/pore's GDP/capita is also multiple times of India's. Furthermore, S/pore is a meritocracy so all top government positions are treated positions in a company. BTW I think PM and Presidents should have high salary but shouldn't be allowed to do corruption.

 

[Mista]

Dude its just president. Ceremonial one lah.

It's not about the powers. It's about the democratic process getting flouted last minute without consulting the people. And obviously most people are against the change.

The President used to be nominated by the government but Lee Kuan Yew purposely changed it to be independently elected by the people and gave the President the 'key' to our reserves. So any party, the PAP or the opposition, which forms the next government can't touch our reserves without an independently elected President's permission.

Yes.
But what to expect from any legal case against the government in our legal system.
Anyway our President is not wholly ceremonial.
He can block the use of funds from our reserves.
That is if opposition wins election, they will be out of funds from day 1 if the President block the release of funds.
To put another way, any new Government must only use money earned by them unless the President release funds accumulated by previous government or from reserves.
.

Actually that applies to the PAP too. Any newly-formed government starts with zero and it's basically impossible to get into a budget deficit because 1) You need the President's permission to dip into past savings, 2) It's against the constitution to borrow money to spend.

So you can only have budget surpluses.

This system is designed by LKY and is unique to Singapore. I think it's brilliant and is what separates Singapore's democracy from Western democracies. Otherwise we would end up like the West where political parties race to give out more freebies without raising taxes. We would be heavily in debt and pay much of our taxes on interest payments, or worse; borrowing money for interest payments.

Instead today, the investment returns (we can only use up to 50%) from our past reserves is contributing $14b passive income every year. This is higher than our corporate tax, income tax, or GST. Our GST will have to raise from 7% to 16% to make up for the $14b if we don't have the investment returns.

 

[8888888888888]

I research into Singapore and it look like their president is just ceremonial.