Posts tagged: presidency
A Beautiful Poster.
So I am endorsing Tan Jee Say. I am voting for him because as far as I can see, he is forthright about his views and holds values that are in rough alignment with mine. These are values anyone with a concern for human rights and human dignity would be comfortable with. He has made an effort to acknowledge the concerns of the gay, lesbian and transgender communities. And not least, because I judge that his convictions are sincere and strong, he has the will to stand by them and, of all the candidates, the fortitude to withstand the bullying that will surely come.
I largely concur with Alex. Listening to the various candidates speak, my impression of Tan Jee Say is one of consistency and conviction.
Asked about salaries, he frankly and reasonably stated his mind. A salaries for public office should not be benchmarked against the position of a CEO in the private sector to begin with, and that S$500,000 is more than enough for him.
His performance, in terms of holding his ground and convictions, during GE2011 was eminently revealing. He competently rebutted the barrage of attacks thrown by the establishment with pure integrity and wit, earning him the best rebuttal of GE2011 according to Yahoo! News Singapore.
Should he be president, I’m absolutely confident that he’ll have the resolution, conviction, and moral ground to do what’s right for the people of Singapore.
Come polling day, I will vote for this man, Tan Jee Say.
Tony Tan booed by crowd on Nomination Day (by worshipper888).
Epic.
Tan Jee Say, a former civil servant who worked in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and served as principal private secretary to then deputy prime minister Goh Chok Tong. He then joined the finance industry where he was CEO of Govett Asset Management’s Asia-Pacific operations. This position led him through the door of the PEC and into the presidential campaign.
He’s my first choice in this presidential elections. Nevertheless, the order in which I’ll vote is as follows:-
- Tan Jee Say
- Tan Kin Lian
- Tan Cheng Bock
There’s no forth choice as it’ll imply a walk-over.
First, Shanmugam “clarifies” for us what the Constitution says about the role of Singapore’s Elected President. Next, he clarifies his clarification. And then he gives a final claim to close the issue. Best of all, he tells us, as reported by SingaporeScene, that “the Constitution [is] very clear on the matter.” Which seems to imply that he has been wasting him time on all the clarification while taxpayers are paying his salary and listening to him so earnestly. I feel betrayed.
I love Molly’s writings.
President S R Nathan’s office has been approving the use of past reserves to fund land reclamation projects since 2001 and land acquisition for the Selective En-Bloc Redevelopment Scheme (Sers) since 2002.
I don’t know about you, but I find it extremely troubling to have heard about this through a report of an interview, almost 10 years after the fact. Especially when it was claimed that in 2009, it is the first time that the government is tapping into the reserves to fund its budget deficit.
After that report, the state-controlled press became dead silent on this matter.
Leong Sze Hian, from the TOC, writes in his article, “How much of the Reserves has been really used?”:
To the best of my knowledge, I do not think anyone in Singapore knew about the use of the Reserves in the past.
Was this ever disclosed in Parliament or reported in the media?
…
Finally, I am rather surprised that with this explosive disclosure now, no one has asked or answered the obvious question – how much of the Reserves has been used?
The coming presidential election is an interesting moment in Singapore politics. We’ve never really had a serious contest before — the last contested one in 1993 was a rather staged affair — and the office of the elected president is still a work in progress. What should the office be about? How much of a caged parrot should the poor sod be? How does one conduct an election campaign for a largely ceremonial office?
A very good read for those undecided or uninformed.
After considering all factors, I have come to the conclusion that, in this phase of my life, I can better contribute to the Singapore we all love in other ways. I have therefore decided not to run for the Presidency this August.
Honestly, I’m glad that he’s chosen not to run as President. As far as I can tell, though he behaves honourably, he does not seem to have the spirit that stands up for the good of the public. Just because he interacts and responds well to people does not mean that he will speak up for the rest of Singaporeans.
As far as I can tell, Singapore, as a member of ASEAN, was not against the violence in Myanmar during their uprising and this stand certainly has to be credited to the foreign ministry and its minister.
At that, we would not have Singaporeans voting compassionately for him and we can then let someone more outspoken and convicted to public spiritedness to “keep an eye on the government”.
Constitutional expert Thio Li-Ann felt that the Law Minister’s statement could reflect a “concern that the people are not fully understanding the functions of the President, so the Government wants it to be crystal clear”.
I didn’t know that the homophobic bigot was an expert in constitutional law too.
That aside, I find it this article very amusing. Applying the inverse reading approach to state-sanctioned news publications, we can see that there’s much expectation within the general public that the “Elected” President is someone worth electing for based on his convictions and intentions of running for presidency.
In due time, I shall comment on the presidential candidates, or especially those, that I think do not deserve to be elected.
