In his speech to Parliament on 27 January 2016, Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong said that it was timely to review the eligibility criteria of the Elected Presidency. On 10 February 2016, a Constitutional Commission consisting of nine individuals and chaired by
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon was formed. In its report released on 7 September 2016, the Commission recommended the following key changes: • The election should be reserved for a racial group if it is not represented for five terms, or 30 years. If there are no eligible candidates from that group, the election would be opened to candidates of all races, and the "reserved election" would be deferred to the next Presidential election. • The
Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA) should be increased from six to eight members, with two alternate members. The President would have to consult the CPA on all monetary issues related to the financial reserves and all key public service appointments. • A qualifying candidate from the private sector should be a senior executive managing a company with at least S$500 million in
shareholders' equity. Previously, such a candidate had to be a chairman or CEO of a company with at least S$100 million in
paid-up capital. • For qualifying candidates from both the public and private sectors, the length of time that the candidate has held office should be doubled to six years. • The public sector offices of
Accountant-General and
Auditor-General should be removed from automatic qualification. • An applicant's entire qualifying tenure should fall within a 15-year period preceding Nomination Day. The government announced in a White Paper published on 15 September 2016 that it has accepted some of the recommendations, including the first three changes above. The government raised the financial requirements for private sector candidates while keeping the requirements of public sector candidates constant, stating it is adopting a "cautious" approach given the other concurrent changes to other aspects of eligibility criteria. On 8 November 2016, PM Lee, under the advice from Attorney-General, announced that the 2017 Presidential Election will be reserved for candidates from the Malay community.
Constitutional challenges On 5 May 2017,
Tan Cheng Bock, a former Member of Parliament (MP) from the
People's Action Party (PAP) who contested in the Singaporean presidential election of 2011, filed a constitutional challenge to determine whether it is correct to set the Presidential Election 2017 as a reserved election under the newly introduced amendments to the Elected Presidency. His challenge was dismissed by Justice Quentin Loh in High Court, explaining that "Article 164(1)(a) provides for Parliament to specify the first term of office of the President to be counted under Art 19B(1) ("First Term")." He then filed an appeal, heard by the
Court of Appeal on 31 July 2017. On 23 August 2017, his appeal was unanimously dismissed by the court of five judges which ruled that the Parliament has full discretion to set the First Term. On 28 August 2017, the
Workers' Party filed an adjournment motion on the election to debate on the issue in the next Parliament sitting on 11 September. On 5 September, the Workers' Party was informed that their motion was not selected for mention as Murali's topic on community sentencing won the ballot. The Workers' Party eventually raised their query in Parliament on 3 October through its chairperson
Sylvia Lim, who challenged why the PAP government uses AGC's advice as a "
red herring" to evade justifying its own decision of starting the count from President
Wee Kim Wee instead of the first elected President
Ong Teng Cheong. She quoted instances where PM
Lee Hsien Loong, DPM
Teo Chee Hean and Minister in Prime Minister's Office
Chan Chun Sing spoke on the matter in parliament, when they stated that the AGC's advice was taken for deciding the starting count. In response, Law Minister
Shanmugam said that the Government sought the AGC's advice on whether there would be "legal impediments" to start the count from President Wee, and that the timing of when to trigger the reserved election was a "policy decision" that was not based on the AGC's advice, as parliament has full discretion on this issue. and pointed to some unnamed individual, "not from the PAP", who was deemed by the court to be misleading the Parliament. In a Facebook post,
Tan Cheng Bock highlighted Shanmugam's apparent contradiction when he was quoted saying in Parliament, "once we get the (AGC's) advice, we will send
it out". Shanmugam responded by accusing Tan of "splicing and rearranging" his words, insisting that "it" refers to the government's position instead of AGC's advice. He also called Tan "bitter". On 22 May 2017, human rights lawyer M. Ravi filed a constitutional challenge, stating that the amendment to the Elected Presidency Scheme "deprives citizens of the right to stand" for the office of the Elected Presidency, is "discriminatory on the grounds of ethnicity", and that it contradicts article 12(2) of the Constitution. On 15 June 2017, his application was dismissed by the High Court with cost. Judge
See Kee Oon said during the hearing that Ravi had not shown how his personal rights were violated by the changes that were made to the scheme. See added that Ravi therefore had "no standing" as a private citizen to mount the challenge. Ravi has since filed an appeal against the court's verdict. His appeal was scheduled to be heard on 31 July. Ravi's challenge was dismissed by Justic See Kee On, a high court judge on grounds that Ravi as a private citizen had "no standing" to mount a challenge. On 13 September 2017, Wong Souk Yee filed a court appeal for, among other things, an order for a by-election to be held for
Marsiling–Yew Tee (MYT) GRC that Yacob had vacated in order to contest the presidential election. The contention was that without a by-election, MYT GRC residents would not be fully represented in Parliament until the next general election which was due in 2021. The appeal was dismissed by the court.
Criticisms The People's Action Party has been accused of using the Presidential office's imperative of preserving racial peace as a way to circumvent democracy and shore up its political power. The government has relied on a survey jointly conducted by online publication
Channel NewsAsia, and
National University of Singapore's
Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), both with ties to the Singapore government, to support its case that Singaporeans are voting along racial lines. This is seen by some [
who?] as a farcical attempt at combating voters' racial bias which, at every election, has been proven to have no impact on election results. The reserved Presidential election is also seen as an elaborate plan to block the candidacy of
Tan Cheng Bock, who lost by a thin margin of 0.35% in the
2011 Presidential elections to
Tony Tan Keng Yam, a former deputy prime minister. Some social media users have mockingly referred to the move as "Tan Cheng Block". Former MP
Inderjit Singh questions why a different yardstick is used for determining the race of an individual instead of adopting the existing standards practised by ethnic self-help organisations SINDA and MENDAKI. In a forum held at IPS on 8 September 2017, law professor Kevin Tan pointed out that the Community Committee's ultimate power to decide a candidate's race, instead of using the court, is unconstitutional. Norshahril Saat, a fellow at the
ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, criticised the racial classification process which relies on the judgement of a few prominent individuals, as elitist. Questions were raised on the implications if the committee were to, in a hypothetical situation, reject a Malay candidate because he is Christian and not
Muslim, as it could be seen as an infringement on a person's constitutional rights to religious freedom. Cabinet Minister Chan Chun Sing responded that it is up to individual racial communities to determine whom to accept as one of them, and no one would dispute the decision. MP
Janil Puthucheary suggested that in such a case, the hypothetical non-Muslim Malay individual could still contest in the next open election. Law professor
Eugene Tan argued that as a reserved election prevents participation of qualified candidates from other races, the principle of
meritocracy is not exercised fully. Critics have highlighted that the more influential position of the prime minister has been held by the Chinese since Singapore's independence. When asked if the role of prime minister should be reserved for minorities at the IPS forum, Law Minister
K. Shanmugam responded that Singapore has chosen "a mixed system", and that whether the country should "go all the way is a question of... what is doable, what the people will accept and also whether you need it... to strengthen our multiracial environment." In addition, Professor Tan contends that a reserved election might just reinforce the alleged tendency of Singaporeans to vote along racial lines since the system will automatically produce a minority-race President at regular intervals if one is not elected. An online
petition circulated on the internet, calling for the election to be made open to all races.
Protest A planned protest against the reserved Presidential election at the
Speaker's Corner was abruptly cancelled as organiser Gilbert Goh believed that a police permit is required and he may not be granted one since the protest revolves around race issues, which, according to
National Parks Board, may contravene the Public Order Act which stipulated that speakers must not speak about matters that may cause ill-will between different racial or religious groups. Following his unsuccessful protest, Goh began organizing a silent sit-in protest to be held on 16 September 2017 at
Hong Lim Park. ==Candidates==