What the presidential election tells us about Singaporean politics

5 October 2023

The recent presidential election in Singapore on 1 September shocked many, not because of who won, but by how much they won. Even the wildly popular Tharman Shanmugaratnam could not have envisioned winning by such a large margin, garnering 70.4 per cent of the valid votes. Tharman is, of course, a household name in the city-state, having previously served as Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Education Minister, and Senior Minister of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). His 22 years in politics served him well in this election, as he was the most recognisable figure among the candidates.

His two contenders, a former senior Government Investment Corporation (GIC) member, Ng Kok Song, and the anti-establishment Tan Kin Lian, barely managed to get their deposits back (each candidate is required to pay a USD 40,500 deposit in order to stand in the election, which will be returned if they secure at least 12.5 per cent of the valid votes).

Even though the president is a non-partisan position, the candidates were primarily defined by their relationships with political parties. Tharman was 'the PAP guy', Tan Kin Lian was endorsed by many opposition figures, and Ng Kok Song was 'the establishment but not-partisan' candidate. But what exactly does the election tell us about Singaporean politics?

The presidency: a primer

Like most parliamentary systems, the president is essentially a ceremonial position, serving as a symbolic and unifying figure for the nation. However, the president does have some substantive powers. First, the president can decide who becomes the prime minister based on his assessment of who has the majority of seats after a general election. While this has never been significant in Singapore since the PAP has always won with more than a two-thirds majority of seats quite easily, in other countries it has been the case that the head of state plays a pivotal role in determining which party forms the government in the event of a hung parliament. One needs to look no further than Malaysia in the past five years, for example.

Will the presidential election results translate into the general elections in 2025? Probably not, since Tharman is indeed an exception. But the ruling PAP can take heart from the results for reasons already mentioned.

Second, the president’s assent is required to draw on the country’s financial reserves, in what has been described as the president holding the second key to the reserves (the first of which is with the government of the day). Third, the president can veto key civil service appointments by the government. The second and third of these presidential powers can, of course, be overturned by the parliament. However, if the president decides not to give approval to draw the reserves, for instance, and parliament overrides that decision, one can imagine that there would be political fallout and the public would ask questions.

But perhaps most importantly, the president can use the office to set the moral tone of politics for the country. The informal status the office possesses could assist in building civil society and helping to create a more vibrant and open political space. President Tharman has already said he will be an active president who will help nurture a strong civil society.

Lessons from the presidential election

Broadly, we can derive three main lessons from the election. First, the election was, in part, a referendum on the PAP. Many had thought that Tharman’s association with the PAP would be to his detriment — after all, he had only resigned from the party a couple of months before the election. However, he outperformed expectations and attained the ultimate mandate, being the highest performer ever in a presidential election in the country’s history.

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat has already claimed that Tharman’s victory shows that the people had judged that the cabinet, of which Tharman was a member, had performed well in leading Singapore to a post-Covid recovery and hence rewarded him. While Heng may have been a little hyperbolic in this claim, as he did not give due attention to the so-called ‘Tharman effect’ (his popularity), he does have a point in that Tharman’s association with the PAP did not harm him.

At the very least, we can conclude that the party brand has not been damaged and is still intact in spite of recent events, and links with the PAP do not diminish a person’s electoral chances. Heng and his party can rightly take a lot of comfort in the results. A lesson for the party is surely that if a credible candidate is put forth, that person will be able to win in any election contesting under the party banner. Given that both Ng and Tan made independence from the government a central theme of their campaigns, it is safe to say that voters did not view Tharman’s prior relations to the PAP as a problem.

Second, we should consider the candidate’s own strengths. Tharman had always been more popular than his party. Even when the PAP received an average of 61 per cent in the 2020 general election, Tharman won with 75 per cent of the votes in his constituency. He has developed an image of being one of the, if not the most, affable personalities in Singaporean politics and is spoken of well even by the opposition. Surveys have even shown that he was many Singaporeans’ preferred candidate to be prime minister. Thus, his popularity — the so-called ‘Tharman effect’ — may not be wholly transferable to his former party. After all, there is only one Tharman.

One lesson which may be replicable, however, is Tharman’s own political demeanour. He has rightly earned a reputation for not being ‘nasty’ in politics towards his opponents, which is a rarity for someone who has served for over two decades and has contested multiple elections. The PAP would do well to take away this lesson for future general elections. To win (big), more of its members need to be more like Tharman!

Third, prior to the election, there was a lot of fearmongering both by mainstream media and online, about the possibility of Tan Kin Lian winning in the election. Tan had, after all, displayed nativist tendencies and had made multiple problematic posts on Facebook objectifying women and against Indians. However, there was almost a lack of honesty about why people wanted to vote for Tan: a vote for him was not necessarily an endorsement of whatever he had said in the past, but instead, it was the starkest protest vote against the PAP. In the end, Tan did not receive a sizeable number of votes, to many people’s relief. Following the election, some people remarked that the results and Tharman’s victory demonstrated Singaporeans’ maturity.

But here is the point: whatever the results, in a democratic election, it would be the right result. If voters have spoken, voters have spoken; we cannot celebrate a result when our preferred candidate wins and hail the maturity of voters, yet denigrate the electorate when they make a choice that runs contrary to our sensibilities. When voters choose, we must understand why they did so instead of being quick to judge and dismiss them.

The road ahead

Will the presidential election results translate into the general elections in 2025? Probably not, since Tharman is indeed an exception. But the ruling PAP can take heart from the results for reasons already mentioned. More importantly, Singapore benefitted from the electoral contest, as an elected president needs an election, not a walkover victory, to have credibility with citizens and a moral mandate. It is difficult to predict what will happen during his tenure as president. Tharman’s resounding victory does put him in good stead, however, to be bolder than any president has ever been in the country’s history.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Dr Walid Jumblatt Abdullah is an Assistant Professor at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Program, Nanyang Technological University. He works on the relationships between Islam and the state, political Islam, and political parties and elections, with a special focus on Singapore and Malaysia. He is the host of Teh Tarik With Walid, where he has discussions with politicians, policymakers and political influencers, in a bid to make politics more accessible. Image credit: Wikimedia (cropped).