Any change to the elected presidency to ensure minority representation necessarily involves affirmative action of some sort, said former Cabinet minister S. Dhanabalan.

His frank assessment set the tone for the fourth and final public hearing on changes to the elected presidency, held at the Supreme Court auditorium yesterday.

The hearing is before a Constitutional Commission Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong appointed in February to review three aspects of the elected presidency: candidates’ eligibility criteria, the Council of Presidential Advisers and minority representation.

Minority representation had been the issue most hotly debated at the hearings, of which the first three were held last month.

While broadly agreeing on the need for a minority president from time to time, speakers were split on how to achieve it.

Some worried that lowering the bar for presidential candidates on the basis of race would undermine meritocracy, while others argued that minority communities themselves reject affirmative action.

Yesterday, Mr Dhanabalan, 78, acknowledged trade-offs that had to be made and the tension between ideals and reality, saying of his own suggestion: “It’s not an ideal solution but we’re looking for practical solutions here.”

Mr Dhanabalan had suggested that every third election be tweaked to ensure a minority president is elected from time to time.

Under this system, there would be two consecutive elections for a president who would serve a six-year term, followed by an election for a presidency with an eight-year term.

For the eight-year term, two candidates would run on the same ticket, with at least one of them coming from a minority group.

Each would be president for four years at a time, during which the other person would be vice-president.

This slate of minority candidates should be nominated by Parliament, said Mr Dhanabalan.

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who chairs the commission, asked if this could lead to criticisms of affirmative action.

Mr Dhanabalan replied: “There is an element of affirmative action in the approach here.

“And I think the very fact that we’re looking for some special way in which minorities can be represented or can become president already is an admission that we need to have something special.”

He also pointed out that the criteria would be lowered only “as a last resort” in special situations, like when people who meet the formal eligibility criteria cannot be encouraged to contest.

Professor Chan Heng Chee, a commission member, asked if under that system, a minority candidate would be left open to criticism that he was riding on the coat-tails of his teammate.

Mr Dhanabalan replied that any kind of group representation constituency (GRC) arrangement – where candidates run in teams – cannot escape that, as “that is required for the very nature of electorate”.

He said that while he was never in favour of the GRC as he is an idealist, he also has to be a realist and consider “what can actually happen”.

“The very fact that we’re talking about making such special provisions for minorities to be elected means that we have deviated a little bit from the ideal situation,” he said.

“The question is how far do we deviate.”

But another group of speakers – National University of Singapore law undergraduates Grace Teo, 20, Carina Kam, 21, and Amelia Chew, 21 – were uncomfortable with affirmative action.

They argued the law should be amended to ensure a candidate is able to unify Singapore’s different races and represent multiracialism, instead of needing the person to come from a minority community.

They were the last of 19 individuals and groups invited to give their views at the hearings, along with constitutional law expert Kevin Tan, former Nominated MP Loo Choon Yong, and lawyer Loo Choon Hiaw yesterday.

The commission’s report is expected to be submitted by the third quarter of this year.

This article was first published on May 7, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Three men were spotted helping an elderly woman to cross the road near People’s Park Centre on Thursday (May 5) at around 10pm.

Stomp contributor Koh said he noticed that the woman had an injured leg.

Koh shared with Stomp:

“I was crossing the road and I saw three young men with a kind heart helping an old lady with leg problems to cross the road!

“So happy to see young men in Singapore doing good things. Makes me feel good staying here! Hope good things can be shared around!”

Visit STOMP for more stories.

They were to be married today.

But instead of having cherished memories of her big day, Miss Khairunnisa Illyasha is left to reflect on what might have been – and to wonder about the circumstances in which her beloved was so cruelly taken away from her just days earlier.

Her fiance, Mr Noor Helmee Roslan, a 23-year-old Malaysian working in Singapore, suffered severe head injuries in an accident on the Seletar Expressway (SLE) last Friday.

A day later, Miss Khairunnisa, also a 23-year-old Malaysian, had the heart-shattering experience of seeing him being taken off life support and then laid to rest.

After The New Paper tracked Miss Khairunnisa down, she said in a phone interview from her family home in Johor Baru (JB): “I cannot believe that the love of my life was robbed from me mere days before the wedding. He is irreplaceable.”

Her first clue that something had gone very wrong was when one of Mr Helmee’s colleagues, whom she had never met, went looking for her at her mother’s food stall in JB at 5am that day.

He had photographs of Mr Helmee’s accident.

In between audible sobs, Miss Khairunnisa said: “Helmee would always message me once he reaches his workplace in Singapore – normally at about 4.30am. I waited and waited that morning, but there was no message from him.”

Mr Helmee, a bus driver with SBS Transit, lived in JB and was riding his motorcycle to work on the SLE when a car hit his bike from behind at about 3.40am, flinging him onto the road.

With little inkling how the collision had occurred, Miss Khairunnisa went to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, accompanied by a friend, and was told that her fiance was unconscious in its intensive care unit (ICU).

“I was shocked when the receptionist told me that he was in the ICU. When I saw the pictures, I didn’t think the accident was that bad,” she said.

Photo: Lianhe Wanbao

Miss Khairunnisa was then told that Mr Helmee had been taken to the operating theatre.

“I just sat outside and broke down, I was really afraid to lose my fiance,” she said.

Four hours later, she was finally allowed to see Mr Helmee.

SPEECHLESS

“I was speechless when I saw him. He was all wired up and his face was so swollen I could hardly recognise him.”

Doctors warned her that Mr Helmee’s chances of waking up were slim and that even then, he might have suffered full memory loss.

Clinging to hope, Miss Khairunnisa, Mr Helmee’s mother and his sister, 22, remained outside the ICU in case he woke up.

“I kept thinking about things I could do to refresh his memory. I thought of pictures that I could show him to remind him of our love when he woke up,” she said.

That moment never arrived.

They had met through her younger sister and were five days from their second anniversary of being together when the accident happened.

“We dreamed of having a big family. He wanted to have many sons, enough to form a football club.”

Hours later, doctors informed her and his family that he was brain dead.

“My mind went blank in that instant. I had been focusing on the possibility of him waking up. I would cry every time we spoke to doctors as it was never good news,” she said.

That night, Mr Helmee’s family decided to take him off life support so as not to prolong his suffering.

“I told his mother that the choice of whether to take him off life support is all hers and I’d respect her decision,” said Miss Khairunnisa, choking back tears.

“Hearing the long, dreadful beep of the heart monitor was the most difficult moment of my life.”

Mr Helmee’s body was taken back to JB and buried on Sunday.

Since then, Miss Khairunnisa has had to deal with the cancellation of their wedding and planned honeymoon. But she could not bear to call the 500 invited guests with the bad news and asked her mother to help her with that.

Miss Khairunnisa said she will eventually donate his bridal gifts to her – a watch, a pair of shoes and a prayer mat – to charity, but for now, they give her some solace.

She said: “Helmee was honest, loyal and compassionate. His last words to me, the day before the accident, were that I was his last love, and he could never love somebody else.”

His sister’s wedding was supposed to be in 2 weeks

Mr Noor Helmee Roslan and his colleague would have been brothers-in-law had he not died after the accident.

The colleague, who wanted to be known only as Mr Arif, told The New Paper that he was supposed to marry Mr Helmee’s sister two weeks after Mr Helmee and Miss Khairunnisa Illyasha’s wedding.

He said: “My fiancee had insisted that we get married after her brother, none of us expected any of this to happen.

“Helmee’s family is still in shock. Our families are not discussing our wedding for the time being.”

“I lost a good friend and a future brother-in-law, but my grief is nothing compared to his family’s. I just want to do my part and be there for them.”

Ms Tammy Tan, the senior vice- president of corporate communications at SBS Transit, said that the company is “deeply saddened” by the death.

She said: “In the one year that he was with us, we have known him as a happy and joyful individual, who got on well with his colleagues.

“He was a good bus captain and we will miss him. We have extended our deepest condolences to his family and are rendering assistance as best we can.”

This article was first published on May 7, 2016. death
Get The New Paper for more stories.

IT is exactly eight weeks to the day since David Ong, the former People’s Action Party (PAP) lawmaker, vacated his Bukit Batok parliamentary seat and resigned from the ruling party.

On Saturday, the 25,727 eligible voters of the single-member constituency (SMC) in western Singapore will once again have to exercise their duties as citizens to elect a new Member of Parliament (MP).

There are two faces on their poll cards, and they will have to mark that all-important “X” next to the one they believe is most capable of handling the demands of the job.

In one corner of the ring is the PAP’s Murali Pillai, a 48-year-old who heads the commercial litigation department at law firm Rajah & Tann; in the other is the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) secretary-general Chee Soon Juan, a veteran politician five years older.

Over the past nine days of campaigning, and even well before that, both men spent the bulk of their waking hours – with fellow party members and volunteers in tow – combing every nook and cranny of the ward.

This is Mr Murali’s second attempt to become an MP. He was appointed the PAP’s branch chairman in Paya Lebar in 2012 and then deployed as part of the party’s five-member team to contest in Aljunied at last September’s general election (GE).

That team eventually came up short against the incumbents from the Workers’ Party (WP), losing narrowly after a recount of the votes.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times

As for Dr Chee, he is taking part in his fifth election on the SDP ticket, and hoping for a much different result from his first four outings.

He first contested the Marine Parade by-election in 1992, and then the general elections in 1997, 2001 and 2015. He lost them all, pulling in 24.5 per cent, 34.86 per cent, 20.25 per cent and 33.4 per cent respectively.

Both candidates have endured a punishing schedule of late to get this far. Now, all that is left is for the by-election’s Returning Officer, Energy Market Authority chief executive Ng Wai Choong, to announce the results at around 11pm or so.

In what is a first for a by-election in Singapore, the Elections Department will reveal the sample count result first, most likely before 10pm. This is derived from 100 ballot papers picked out at random from each of the nine polling stations.

By-election battle for Bukit Batok SMC

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times, The New Paper, Lianhe Zaoabao, Berita Harian

These sample scores have been tallied for several elections but were first made public at last year’s GE. They are meant to prevent speculation and misinformation from unofficial sources while counting is still going on.

Whoever emerges the winner on Saturday night will eventually be sworn in to join the other 88 elected MPs – 82 from the PAP and six from the WP – in the House, as part of Singapore’s 13th Parliament.

leeuwen@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on May 7, 2016.
Get The Business Times for more stories.

The Elections Department (ELD) will give people an early indication of the possible result of today’s Bukit Batok by-election shortly after polling closes at 8pm.

It will announce a sample count of the votes, which it did for the first time in last year’s general election.

The ELD’s aim in releasing the result is to prevent unnecessary speculation and reliance on unofficial sources of information while counting is still under way.

Tonight’s sample count result will be derived from a random count of 100 ballot papers from each of the nine polling stations in Bukit Batok, and then weighted to account for the difference in the total number of votes cast at each station.

The result will be given in percentages, rounded off to the nearest whole number.

The sample count process has been done as an internal check against the final result in past polls, although GE2015 was the first time the sample count was made public.

At last year’s general election, Singaporeans had a fairly reliable indicator of how votes went in each of the 16 group representation constituencies and 13 single-member constituencies by 11.15pm.

The first set of sample count results – which had included Bukit Batok – came in at 9.37pm.

Comparatively, the first official result came in at about 11.30pm, and the last after 3am. The official result for Bukit Batok was announced at about 1.20am.

The sample count results had correctly indicated all the eventual winners, even in the close contest of Aljunied GRC where there was a recount.

Its difference from the full count was below two percentage points in all but one of the 29 constituencies.

In Bukit Batok, the sample count showed Mr David Ong of the People’s Action Party getting 74 per cent. It was 26 per cent for Mr Sadasivam Veriyah of the Singapore Democratic Party, and zero per cent for independent candidate Samir Salim Neji.

This proved comparable to the final result, in which Mr Ong took 73 per cent of the votes, Mr Sadasivam got 26.4 per cent, and Mr Samir had 0.6 per cent.

The sample counts have a confidence level of 95 per cent, with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

This means it is still possible that, despite a sample count result of 54 per cent to 46 per cent, the latter candidate could end up winning.

But the chance of such a swing taking place is less likely than when the difference is smaller, say, 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times

Bukit Batok by-election rally May 3

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

AsiaOne, YouTube screengrabs

This article was first published on May 7, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

SINGAPORE – The Elections Department announced that 12,303 Singaporeans have turned up to cast their votes in the Bukit Batok by-election by 12pm today (May 7).

That is 47 per cent of the 25,727 registered electors in the constituency, it said in a statement.

Bukit Batok residents started voting at 8am when the polls opened.

It’s a straight fight between the People’s Action Party’s (PAP’s) Murali Pillai and Singapore Democratic Party’s Chee Soon Juan.

The by-election was called last month after the previous member of parliament, PAP’s David Ong, resigned in March over an alleged extra-marital affair with a grassroot volunteer.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times

Dr Chee told The Straits Times that he had been going around the different polling stations “to make sure everything is okay” this morning.

Mr Murali also said that he’s “lost count of the stations” he visited, since he started before 8am.

The Straits Times said that voters started queueing at some polling stations as early as 7.30am.

sinsh@sph.com.sg

Up to 25,727 Bukit Batok residents will go to the polls today to elect a new MP, after having had some time to reflect on the by-election campaign and mull over their decision on Cooling-off Day yesterday.

The cooling-off period also meant both candidates – Mr Murali Pillai, 48, of the People’s Action Party (PAP) and Dr Chee Soon Juan, 53, of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) – could rest and recharge after nine days on the hustings.

Today, nine polling stations across the Bukit Batok single-member constituency will open at 8am, and close at 8pm. The polling stations are at two school canteens, six void decks, and one HDB pavilion.

Polling stations have also been set up at 10 Singapore missions abroad for the 52 eligible Bukit Batok voters to cast their ballots.

The seat for Bukit Batok SMC was vacant following the resignation of its PAP MP David Ong on March 12 over allegations of an extramarital affair with a fellow party member.

Since the hustings began on April 27, both candidates have gone out to win hearts and minds.

Mr Murali of the PAP said he would do his best to make Bukit Batok a better place for its residents, while Dr Chee, secretary-general of the SDP, said he would speak up for Singaporeans in Parliament.

Yesterday, both men used the cooling-off period to bond with party activists and family members.

Mr Murali had a zi charlunch at a coffee shop in Jurong West with party members from the PAP Bukit Batok branch. He had met representatives of some voluntary welfare organisations earlier on in a nearby block to discuss collaborations, he told reporters.

The head of commercial litigation at law firm Rajah and Tann also had breakfast with his family – something he has not had time to do when the campaign was in full swing. He is married to geography teacher N. Gowri and they have four children. “The nine days have been rather intense so I took time to catch up with my family and had breakfast with them,” he said.

“All these things are happening outside Bukit Batok. We are closely observing the cooling-off rules.”

On the SDP side, Dr Chee, a father of three, and his party members laid out fruits, snacks, and drinks on mats for an afternoon picnic at the Botanic Gardens with some 30 party members and volunteers, including Dr Chee’s wife Huang Chih Mei.

Dr Chee spent the rest of the day with his family, an SDP spokesman said. SDP has also got a police permit for supporters to gather at Bukit Gombak Stadium from 8pm tonight, when polls close, to await the result.

PAP is not organising a public gathering, but Mr Murali and his team will gather at the party’s Bukit Batok branch for the result.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times

Bukit Batok by-election rally May 3

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

AsiaOne, YouTube screengrabs

This article was first published on May 7, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.