Smashing a nut with a sledge hammer

The biggest irony of the upcoming Presidential Election is that a supposedly capable person is chosen to be a mere figurehead. We can see that the President really has not much power during the annual NDP when the poor chap has to stand stiffly while the parade commander takes his time to salute with the sword and ask the question to which he already knows the answer. "Permission to begin the march past, Sir!"

On paper, the Elected President is supposed to safeguard the reserves of Singapore and to act as a check to prevent the government from potential abuse of it, for example "welfare policies". Strange that tossing out goodies for the people just before the General Election is not seen as using public money to increase one's chance of been re-elected unlike "welfare policies". I suppose, packaging makes all the difference. This role is what makes the President important beside other ceremonial roles like been the Chancellor of NUS, patron of charities, Chief Scout (?!!) and the subject of the photos in government buildings. And because the President is like the mother hen sitting on our golden eggs; the billion of dollars of reserve, you need someone who has demonstrated capability in managing such a vast pool of money and hence the criteria that it should be some big wig in corporations or ministries/ statutory boards. I have no objection at all to such stringent requirements even though it means that according to estimates, potential candidates number only about 300. The private sector big wigs, like the CEOs and chairmans of the big corporations would not be much interested since that would be a huge opportunity cost for them. So we are left with former top public servants from the stat boards and ministries, who therefore are already closely affiliated with the politicians of the dominant party (it is an open secret that the public service in Singapore is completely politicized and reports to the party). This is a less than ideal state of affairs as it means that it would be more difficult to expect such people even when elected to really check on the party's use of the reserves. I can live with this too if this is the best we can get in the kind of political system in Singapore.

But what really irked me is that we set such a high bar for the candidacy of the President and at the end of the day, his powers are much like his freedom to say "no" or "later" when asked for permission for the march past. Afterall, the last elected President who really did his job, by inquiring about the position of our nation's assets got stonewalled by the party and the bureauracy to such an extent that in a most Un-Singaporean politician style, he actually confessed to the public his frustrations and unhappiness with the government. Of course, as part of his retribution, he did not even get a state funeral. The grandiose affair of the state funeral of the late Mr. Wee was as much a snub to the late Mr. Ong as a tribute by the party to a man who remained loyal and friendly to the party to his last day. Although I have nothing against Mr. Wee, but I felt that his contributions to the nation paled in comparison to Mr. Ong who has been the Sec-Gen of NTUC and DPM. He was also the Minister of Transport responsible for building the MRT in Singapore during the recession when we also needed fiscal priming. I can still vividly remembered the scene during a President Charity event on TV when Mr. Ong actually went up to the stage to play the piano. If there is only one People's President, it should be Mr. Ong Teng Cheong.

Given that we now know the President would be nothing but a figurehead from history, the whole notion of setting high standard for presidential candidacy looks ridiculous. Why do you need someone with more than 3 years of managing more than $100 million capital when that person would probably not even have any information of the nation's assets, much less help to safeguard and manage it? It is like spending hours to select a sledge hammer to smash a nut. Since the President only need to look stately and be sufficiently eloquent to give a speech, for example during the commissioning parade of SAF's officer cadets, even Gurmit Singh (no insult to him) should be allowed to run for President. Nevermind that he is Phua Chu Kang, which despite the government's disapproval is something of an icon of the Singapore heartlands. Was Ronald Reagan not an actor too? And the similarity between him and Gurmit Singh is that they both played roles that represented something of the soul of their respective countries. Isn't it amazing that when the President of the United States of America is one of the most powerful leaders of the world, nobody in America demanded that Ronald Reagan should have experience in managing a corporate entity the size of General Electric? Well, I suppose that it must be Singapore is a "meritocratic" society (as the government likes to say).