SINGAPORE ELECTS, UM, SELECTS ITS PRESIDENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SINGAPORE 002456

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/18/2015
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM SN
SUBJECT: SINGAPORE ELECTS, UM, SELECTS ITS PRESIDENT


Classified By: EP Counselor Laurent Charbonnet, Reasons 1.4(b)(d)


1. (U) Singapore's Presidential Elections Committee (PEC)
announced August 13 that it had certified incumbent President
S.R. Nathan, alone among four applicants, as eligible to
contest this year's presidential election. Only Nathan, 81,
will participate in the Nomination Day ceremony August 17,
whereupon he will receive a second six-year term, which will
begin with inauguration on September 1. The government has
cancelled the presidential election slated for August 27.
This is the second time that Nathan has been selected without
having to face an opponent. Three government-appointed
senior civil servants comprise the PEC.

Strict Criteria for Office
--------------


2. (U) Singapore's constitution requires that presidential
candidates meet a number of very specific requirements - for
example, they must have had experience at the cabinet level
in government, served as chairman or CEO of a statutory
board, or been chairman or CEO of a firm with paid-up capital
of S$100 million. They also can not be members of a
political party. The position is largely ceremonial, though
the president has limited oversight authority over government
spending, as a check against profligate spending by an
"irresponsible" (i.e., non-Peoples Action Party) government.

A Challenger?
--------------


3. (U) Of the disallowed candidacies, the most interesting
was that of Andrew Kuan, a member of the ruling PAP who
announced his plans to resign from the party and run for
president in an August 5 interview with the Straits Times.
Kuan almost looked like he might qualify: he had served as
CFO of Jurong Town Corporation (JTC),an important statutory
institution, for three years. While not exactly meeting the
constitutional criteria, the press speculated that it might
be good enough.


4. (U) Kuan quickly ran into a PAP buzz-saw, however.
Following several days of unflattering press stories
regarding his performance at previous jobs, assertions by the
GOS-controlled JTC that they had asked him to resign or face
being fired for unsatisfactory performance finally seemed to
do him in. The PEC announced that his application to run had
been denied because his work experience as group financial
officer for JTC did not match the constitutionally mandated
criteria. Less controversially, the PEC also denied the
candidacies of Ooi Boon Ewe (a reportedly formerly bankrupted
businessman whose business license had expired) and
Ramachandran Govindasamy Naidu (who had retired in 1987 from
military service as a senior storekeeper).


5. (C) Comment: The risk-averse GOS once again demonstrated
it prefers superficial unanimity to the "embarrassment" of
the predictably 25-30 percent protest vote. The field of
possible presidential candidates is already extremely narrow,
limited to the political and business elite, and the PAP
senior leadership had already backed the avuncular Nathan for
a second term when Kuan launched his quixotic candidacy.
While the press' background-checking and dirt-digging would
be par for the course in any normal democracy, Singaporeans
were aware of the ironies of a government-controlled press
reporting "revelations" from government-controlled
institutions regarding the qualifications of someone brave
enough to throw his hat in the ring. End Comment.
LAVIN