Ng Kok Song questions Tan Kin Lian’s independence after Tan Cheng Bock endorsement
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Presidential candidate Ng Kok Song was well-received by stallholders and patrons of Ayer Rajah Food Centre on Monday, with some asking to take pictures with him.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
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SINGAPORE – Presidential hopeful Ng Kok Song Mr Tan’s endorsement by Dr Tan Cheng Bock, chairman of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP).
A day after Mr Tan announced the alliance, Mr Ng took his campaign trail to Ayer Rajah, where Dr Tan was MP for 26 years, and did not mince his words as he criticised Dr Tan’s endorsement,
Speaking to the media at Ayer Rajah Food Centre on Monday before a walkabout, Mr Ng, 75, questioned how Mr Tan, also 75, could claim to be an independent candidate when he has been dependent on opposition party leaders.
“There’s a danger that he’s going to be manipulated by those leaders of the opposition parties. They even went so far as to say that those who are supporting him may be appointed as advisers to the Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA),” said Mr Ng, former chief investment officer of sovereign wealth fund GIC.
“Isn’t that a form of corruption? So what sort of independence is that?” he said, referencing Mr Tan’s comments on Sunday that Dr Tan and proposer Tan Jee Say would be excellent candidates for the CPA.
Mr Ng later clarified that he was not ascribing any criminal intent, but suggesting that such an act could be seen as a moral perversion of the CPA.
The CPA advises the president on the exercise of his custodial powers. Of its eight members, three are appointed at the discretion of the president, three are appointed by the prime minister, and one each is appointed by the chief justice and the chairman of the Public Service Commission.
Mr Ng accused Mr Tan of making a mockery of the presidency and said political parties should wait for the next general election – scheduled to be held by November 2025 – to make their point instead of confusing voters into thinking that this is a general election.
Calling their motives “devious”, Mr Ng said: “They are doing an act of great disservice to the people of Singapore by confusing the people of Singapore.”
He added: “What happened yesterday is an act of dishonour, disrespect, contempt, on the office of the presidency; to mix up the presidency with gutter politics.”
Mr Ng said that if a similar situation were to happen in Britain, its people would be aghast as to how politics can degrade the head of state and would criticise the political parties.
“I believe that the people of Singapore will do the same and will not stand for politicians making a mockery of the presidency,” said Mr Ng.
In the 2011 Presidential Election, Dr Tan, 83, garnered 34.85 per cent of the votes and Mr Tan Jee Say secured 25.04 per cent, while Mr Tan Kin Lian received 4.91 per cent. Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam won with 35.2 per cent of the votes and became Singapore’s seventh president.
On Monday, Mr Ng noted that the politicisation of the presidential election would not happen if the election was non-partisan and none of the candidates was supported by a political party. He said the alliance would only reinforce his campaign strategy of appealing to voters as the only candidate without political affiliations.
“In this presidential election, we have one candidate who is being supported by some opposition parties, we have another candidate who is endorsed by the Government. I am the only candidate who is not supported, not endorsed by any political party,” said Mr Ng.
He called it a matter of urgency to have a non-partisan president. “If we don’t do that at this presidential election, we are going to be trapped into this quagmire, into this quicksand, where every time there’s a presidential election, it becomes a proxy general election,” he said.
“We must put a stop to it, Singaporeans. We will not allow this to continue because to do so would compromise the office of the president.
“It will make it very difficult for us to have a president who will truly safeguard our reserves, who will truly uphold the integrity of the public service and who will unify the people of Singapore.”
On Mr Tan Kin Lian’s comments that the amount in the reserves should not be kept a secret, Mr Ng called this position dangerous and said: “The reserves of Singapore are our financial defence in times of war; it is no small matter... By forcing the Government to disclose the total size of our reserves is to help our enemies.”
Mr Ng was well received by stallholders and patrons of the food centre, with some asking to take pictures with him and his fiancee Sybil Lau, 45. He and his volunteers gave out campaign pamphlets displaying his slogan “United for our future”.
His campaign trail continued on Monday afternoon to Lau Pa Sat, where many office workers in the lunchtime crowd greeted him and stopped him for photos.
