Scheduled for September, the coming presidential election must be the most anticipated public event of 2017. While the populations of larger democratic countries have to contend with numerous regional and local elections that may cause electoral fatigue, Singaporeans get to express their democratic voice only once every two to three years in alternating general and presidential elections, as well as the occasional by-election. This year’s election, though, is especially anticipated by the Malay community because for the first time, the presidential election will be reserved for Malays.
In an inherited Westminster parliamentary system such as ours, the Head of State usually plays a largely ceremonial role. The first four presidents after independence were appointed by Parliament and their duty was largely to play a unifying figure by presiding over ceremonies and events designed to bind Singaporeans together as one people and to act as Singapore’s foremost representative to foreign states and their dignitaries. Individuals with dignity, solemnity and a bit of the common touch were the order of the day.
CHANGES IN THE ELECTED PRESIDENCY
This system was changed in January 1991, after new constitutional amendments passed by Parliament provided for the popular election of the president. This change in the source of legitimacy for the office also came with new executive and legislative powers. Under these constitutional changes, the elected president was given the power to veto legislative attempts to use our national reserves, the power to appoint individuals to certain key civil service positions, and powers to oversee the enforcement of the Internal Security Act, the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act as well as the Prevention of Corruption Act by their respective executive bodies.
In November last year, constitutional provisions for the office of the president were again amended. This time the key changes were twofold. First, the 1991 requirement for private sector candidates to have helmed companies worth at least $100 million in shareholder equity was raised to $500 million. Second, the amendment provides for elections that are reserved for minority communities. A reserved election is triggered by five consecutive terms without a president coming from a particular minority community. And so, with these new rules and the requirements and responsibilities of the president set out above, the search for the ideal Malay candidate for president looks to be a daunting task.
A COMMUNITY DIVIDED
This year’s presidential election is set aside for the Malay community because we have not had a Malay president in the five terms since the elected presidency started. (Wee Kim Wee’s term is taken into account because the 1991 constitutional changes applied to his last two years in office.) But of course, the dearth in Malay presidents extends further back. Since the republic’s first president Yusof Ishak died in office in 1970, no Malay person has ascended to the presidency. Thus, the first questions that we should ask are whether this is a problem and for whom.
Perusing letters to the newspapers and comments on social media, it seems that the issue of reserved elections has divided the Malay community. Some segment of the community welcomes the news that the next president will definitely be Malay, however there does not seem to be significant discursive support for the general idea of race-based reserved elections as a solution to the perceived problem. On the other hand, the segment of the community who opposes this development is more vocal online and makes more sustained arguments, perhaps the most central of which is that these reserved elections go against the meritocratic values which the community has accepted as its own. After seeing more and more Malays climb the private and public sector ladders in the last couple of decades, they argue that these reserved elections are a form of affirmative action which is neither needed nor wanted. One Malay professional who wrote in to The Straits Times called it a ‘major step backwards’ for the community.
Indeed, it would be more satisfying if a Malay president were to attain the office on his or her own steam. However, to argue that reserved elections skew the playing field and go against our meritocratic values is to assume that the playing field is level in the first place. Despite our high regard for meritocracy, a 2016 Institute of Policy (IPS) survey commissioned by ChannelNews Asia found evidence to the contrary. Among other findings, it found that only 59% of Chinese respondents found a Malay president acceptable. Thus, at best, given two candidates of equal standing, 41% of Chinese respondents would prefer the one who was not Malay. At worst, perhaps this segment will take any non-Malay over any Malay candidate regardless of relative ability. If indeed this is a reliable reflection of the whole Chinese community, it is a significant and quite possibly decisive segment of the electorate.
For the People’s Action Party (PAP) government, the long absence of a Malay president in the Istana is not simply a problem with our meritocratic value system, it is also a problem for the credibility of our multicultural national character. Thus, the issue of whether or not we should have reserved elections goes beyond the interests and self-regard of the Malay or any other minority community. It extends to how the entire nation views itself and its credibility among other nations that it is what it says it is. If we are a multicultural exemplar to the world, not having an ethnic rotation in the Istana hurts our credibility. This is not to say however, that this author agrees with the particular solution the PAP government has offered for this problem, only that a superficial colour-blind approach can potentially gloss over salient imbalances in the status quo.
PRIVATE VS PUBLIC SECTOR CANDIDATE
The other salient and related issue in this coming presidential election is whether there is a large enough talent pool of Malay persons who meet the stated requirements for the office of president. While there might be a handful of Malays in the public sector who meet those specific requirements, many online discussions have lamented the lack of suitable Malays in the private sector. It is probably true that a Malay candidate from the public sector who has gone through the tough selection process of the PAP may reassure more establishment-minded voters who prefer a candidate with higher paper qualifications and more experience serving the people at large. Nevertheless, given the PAP government’s emphasis on how important it is that a president is qualified for and is able to play the custodial role over our national reserves, the time might be ripe for a suitable Malay candidate from the private sector. Such a candidate may better impress other ethnic communities on how far the Malay community has come in socio-economic terms.
Like most things political, the issue of the best presidential candidate has to take into account the trade-offs. A more traditional candidate from the public sector, after years of serving the public, is more likely to better fulfil the symbolic unifying role of the president. This is advantageous because while the slate of candidates for this election is exclusive to Malays, let us remind ourselves that the whole country is still voting. A former public servant will probably have better national name recognition and wider, legitimacy-enhancing, cross-communities appeal to the entire electorate, which as we covered earlier still harbours significant ethnic bias.
A candidate from the private sector however, seems better suited to this moment, when the custodial role is prominently at issue and a desire to break away from PAP influence remains relatively high since Dr Tan Cheng Bock’s losing campaign in 2011. Such a candidate will represent a different direction in our governance – an injection of dynamic private sector culture and professionalism into a government whose olde-worlde ways are increasingly being questioned. Such a candidate will represent a break from the past and it would be beneficial to the Malay community if the face of a forward-looking Singapore were to be a Malay one. Such a candidate will help the community be associated with progress and dynamism rather than backwardness and parochialism.
CONCLUSION
Looking at the complexity of the issue, perhaps it would not be entirely surprising if we conclude that there is no ideal candidate, practically speaking. An ideal candidate would have to spend two lifetimes cultivating careers in both the public and private sectors. But here, perhaps we should remind ourselves that the perfect is the enemy of the good and while it is not often that we praise a jack of all trades perhaps the President’s Office of the Republic of Singapore is in need of one. The next president will have a lot of different expectations with which to contend. Maybe perfection should not be one of them. ⬛
Dr Johannis Abdul Aziz is a Research Fellow at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. He has a BA(Hons) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and was awarded a PhD in Political Science by the University of California Berkeley in 2014. His research interests include the politics, public policy and civil society organisations of Singapore. The views expressed in this article are his own.
