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Back to square one, the only unifying Singapore President is a non-contested and Parliament appointed President




Yes. Perhaps, the Workers’ Party is right. Perhaps, JBJ was right when he opposed the Elected President proposal.  The power of checks and balances should go back to the Parliament and there is no point of continued debating the role of the Elected President.

The more debates on the role of EP, the more political the post of EP will be. 

The New Parliament will be sitting in October. The PAP government should seriously consider abolishing the EP and go back to the original ceremonial role of the President. Both the government and President Tony Tan have hinted that there will be some changes as regards to the role of the EP.

Why don’t take this opportunity to abolish the EP and return the power of the EP back to the Parliament?

We only know the good points of the PAP government, for example economic growth and in fact, they have made policy mistakes too.  EP was one of them that not only it has failed to unite the people but divide the people further. EP is created to protect the country’s reserve and institutions just in case a bad government is elected.

Who is to decide the definition of bad government that will never listen to the voice of the people?  Is it the PAP or the voters? Obviously, the voters are responsible not the PAP.  A PAP endorsed President who only received 35% of the votes will have a hard time to unify the people if not divided them further.

Singapore voters have become more mature than before as shown in GE2011 and PE2011. Because of the maturity, the outdated EP is no more suitable for today’s Singapore.  The EP was designed for some special reasons more than 20 years ago and the reasons are no more valid today.  Any alterations, changes and refining will still make EP a political one for political purpose.

Can we deny that all candidates in PE2011 have no political agenda? Have any of them received no support from political parties? 

It is said to be non-partisan and neutral.  But without party machinery, no candidate can win the Presidential Election.  Tan Kin Lian was the weakest link so he lost his deposit. It is created in favour of a government endorsed candidate but it is now back firing itself.  Voters blamed the PAP supported candidate for all the wrong doings of the PAP.

A non-politician has little chance to be elected too. He has no power base like Tony Tan and Tan Cheng Bock in the north and west of Singapore respectively. How can an EP have his own power base in a particular area in Singapore? And he supposes to serve the whole country. It divides the country further. Consistently, in future, whoever wins the race will have to have a power base.  This will make the contest even more politically.

It also denies minority to be an EP in future. This is a very bad development for our multi-racial society.  Past examples had shown that a non Chinese can serve as a unifying President, a People President!

The EP cannot safeguard the reserve as long as the government has two-third majority in the Parliament. If a President elected by Singapore voters cannot exercise his rights to protect the reserve, and then what is the point of electing him?

If he exercises his rights, he is considered as the second power centre.  The government can even remove him from office.

So, a contested EP has no power but indeed divides the country, divides the people further.  It is better to take away the ‘E’ from EP and return to its original ceremonial role.  

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