Who’s got “it” to be President? Part 1

By Bertha Henson and Wan Ting Koh

OKAY, so it was a Monday, the start of the work week, which could be why there were fewer than 30 members of the public present at the Supreme Court auditorium, when the Constitutional Commission looking at the elected presidency parameters started its work at 9.30am.

It was quite a pity given that it was a wonderful display of intellectual interaction between the commission members and those who were invited to give their views. The commission, headed by Chief Justice (CJ) Sundaresh Menon, saw seven people in all. There was plenty of grilling and drilling which reflected the scrutiny paid to even minute proposed changes to a unique Singapore institution.

To re-cap: the nine-member commission was asked to study the changes that needed to be made to the qualifying criteria of presidential aspirants, the powers of the Council of Presidential Advisors and a way to ensure that minorities get a shot at the office.

So there was former Nominated MP Eugene Tan, a constitutional law expert, who thinks that the qualifying criteria should be “updated” – since it was last set in 1991 over a much smaller economy and much smaller national reserves. The criteria now: Head honchos from the private sector must have handled companies with at least $100m in paid-up capital, which is small beer today. From 158 companies in 1993 when the first Presidential Election (PE) was held, there are now more than 2,000 which fit the bill.

Prof Tan wants the criteria “updated” (he didn’t say how) but not so much as to shrink the pool of minority candidates with the aptitude and inclination for the job. You would have thought that a pool of 2,000 companies in the private sector would be able to throw up many more minority candidates compared to the initial 158. Commission member Mr Peter Seah, chairman of DBS bank, referred to the figures but stopped short of making the point.

On the other hand, there was the team from Aware which wanted the criteria made less stringent, suggesting that instead of $100m in paid-up capital, it should be $50m in net assets. This would open the door wider for women, said executive director Corinna Lim and programme and communications senior manager Jolene Tan.

If the women, who showed a slide with portraits of the past presidents, entitled All the President’s Men, thought they would get support from the only woman member of the commission, Prof Chan Heng Chee, they thought wrong. The academic and former envoy didn’t think the criteria needed narrowing. Pointing out that six permanent secretaries and 25 per cent of current Members of Parliament were women, she added: “I’m quite optimistic, increasingly there are women who are well qualified and who will meet criteria… I do not agree that we should lower barriers to let women in.”

Much of the day was spent canvassing views on how the presidency should be tweaked to allow for minority representatives. All seven said it was a good thing to have but differed on ways to reach the goal. They range from having a two-person ticket, much like the US presidency, to having closed elections for minorities if too much time had elapsed since a non-Chinese took office.

So private sector, women and minorities… what of the public sector people who are now eligible? Here’s the list of who qualifies: Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament, Attorney-General, Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Auditor-General, Accountant-General, Permanent Secretary, chairman or chief executive officer of the Central Provident Fund Board, the Housing and Development Board, the Jurong Town Corporation or the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Everyone seemed to have a view on paid-up capital in private sector but not much on whether the public sector list should be trimmed, extended or have more criteria grafted on it. It seems that no one quarrels with their skill sets, even though some may not have had to handle large sums of money.

The only instances they were referred to was when CJ Menon asked Prof Tan about his suggestion that three-year minimum criteria should vary for different types of office holders? Perhaps five years, suggested CJ Menon, to show “consistency’’ of work and depth of experience. You wonder what this would do the Prime Minister’s authority to shuffle key officers…

The duo from Aware also suggested that more top-ranking public servants, such as senior ambassadors and superscale civil servants be added to the pool of potential candidates and that their proposal of dropping the qualifying criteria to $50m net asset be applied to them too.

A topic that was not quite within the Commission’s ambit was raised: the timing of proposed changes.  Prof Tan suggested that they be applied not to the next PE due in 2017 and not the one in 2023. The Prime Minister had said that the changes should be in place by the end of the year, which makes it likely that they will kick in for the coming PE.

But is this really a decision for the commission to make, asked CJ Menon. Or a political decision for the PM? In the end, the compromise was that the final report should reflect feedback, rather than make a recommendation.

There was plenty of back-and-forth on the non-political, non-partisan nature of the office. Prof Tan said he was hoping to take out the “political edges” from the job by asking for more transparent processes. He thought that having the Presidential Elections Committee decide whether candidates had “integrity, good character and reputation…’’  before approving them was too “subjective”.  The question of character should be left to the electorate. If not, then the committee should make its objections public.

CJ Menon’s counter: What if the candidates had to sign a “self-disclosure’’ form? Or what if the committee tells the candidate privately of its objections and leaves it to the candidates to decide on making it public? Prof Tan thought it was worth considering but Aware’s representatives had a different take when it was raised with them. Those who put their names up were forfeiting their privacy as they were already “taking steps to be in public domain”, Ms Lim said, adding that though she like the idea of the form, it should be made public rather than kept to the committee. To that, CJ Menon said that this might open candidates to inflammatory attacks and make the elections more reactionary and divisive.

Everything is getting a little tangled. The fact is, the presidency is a non-political office filled via a political process known as the election. Even Prof Tan found himself conflating issues when he noted that the criteria for presidency is more stringent than for prime ministership. But the presidency is about unifying symbol with custodial powers, CJ Menon pointed out, while the PM has a political party with an agenda for the people. They cannot be compared.

That well might be the case, but as far as the people are concerned, both involved voting. Non political office notwithstanding, people simply see the presidency as a separate power centre that is within the G. People forget that it was the G itself which put in place this ownself-check-ownself mechanism, which could constrain its actions should an “unfriendly” president take power.

Of course, the opposing view is that the G now wants changes to make sure that there is a higher chance that a “friendly” president will be elected, since he or she would have like-minded views with the Establishment.

There in the front row was Mr Tan Jee Say, former presidential candidate and head of the Singaporeans First Party. He told TMG he hasn’t ruled out standing for the presidency but this would need to depend on the new criteria and what his party members thought. He was definitely against raising the $100m threshold.

The sum is not small, he said, and the principle of being able to manage money is the same whether it was $100m or more. Mr Tan himself was a managing director at AIB Govett, an organisation which, though it did not have a paid-up capital of $100m, was said to be of “equivalent complexity” to such companies.

 

The commission will resume its hearing this Friday (April 22).

 

Featured image from TMG file. 

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