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SINGAPORE: Former Staff’ Celebration Non-constituency MP Yee Jenn Jong weighed in fairly a bit on this yr’s presidential elections and over the weekend, issued what he says could also be his last Fb submit on PE2023.
Singaporeans trooped to the polls final Friday (Sept 1) and elected former Deputy Prime Minster Tharman Shanmugaratnam by an awesome majority, giving him over 70 per cent of the vote. Mr Yee wrote, “The win was anticipated however the margin is astounding. Getting 70% of the votes meant that he has gotten almost all the center floor votes, fairly a troublesome factor in at the moment’s political local weather.”
He famous that Mr Tharman may have confronted “the burden of protest votes in opposition to the institution from the center floor in a contest with far decrease stakes than a GE, however it hardly occurred.”
Moreover, the election got here on the heels of a string of controversies involving high-level officers from the Individuals’s Motion Celebration, however this barely affected the election’s final result. And whereas Mr Yee acknowledged the “creditable efforts” of the 2 different candidates, he underlined that they had been up in opposition to a strong determine.
“Tharman is just, Tharman. Unstoppable, untouchable, simply merely standard. It’s onerous to duplicate. It’s nearly like watching a brand new Marvel superhero character being launched. His opponents mainly cut up the opposition votes and drew few assist from the center floor. All of the scandals and protests aimed on the institution for its perceived manipulation of the establishment simply received deflected like filth on Teflon. Nothing sticks. Race didn’t matter in any respect, regardless of us being instructed for many years that we would have liked reserved PEs and the GRC system to make sure that minorities might be popularly elected.”
Mr Yee then talked about the oft-quoted maxim that nice powers come nice accountability, however in Mr Tharman’s case and given the character of the presidency in Singapore, “With nice expectations come nice tasks.”
He famous that the previous DPM “promised to redefine the character to the presidency, which was the motivation for him to enter the race. He had additionally promised independence in pondering.”
Based mostly on his personal interactions with him throughout Mr Yee’s time as an NCMP, he wrote that Mr Tharman “had all the time acted graciously and generously.”
Mr Yee ended his submit by writing that the establishment of the elected president in Singapore “does want a breath of contemporary air after 30 years of perceived tight controls by the institution.
With this type of vote, he definitely has the mandate to redefine the EP past simply the ceremonial, and he can definitely do it his manner, and inside the boundaries of the principles of the system.
All mentioned, I nonetheless stay up for the day that we are able to revisit this establishment and revert to different mechanisms for the second key to the reserves.” /TISG
Tharman Outshines PAP in Reputation, Says Ex-NCMP Yee Jenn Jong
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