The Eurasian Association yesterday said restricted presidential elections, in which only minority candidates can run, are not the best way to ensure Singapore gets a minority president from time to time.

It proposed having GRC-style presidential polls instead to achieve this aim.

“We’re not in favour of the restricted election where… we have a minority candidate stand (after a few terms),” its president Benett Theseira said at the second Constitutional Commission hearing on the elected presidency.

“We feel it goes against the grain of our multiracial philosophy and it may create unhappiness, forcing people to vote for a single individual who is of an ethnic minority.”

Mr Theseira was at the hearing with the association’s vice-president Alexius Pereira, honorary treasurer Martin Marini and trustee Timothy de Souza.

He also said stipulating that only minority candidates can run could create keen competition among minority communities and divide them.

Under the GRC-style election, two or three people will contest the election on one ticket, with at least one member in the group belonging to a minority race.

The group will then pick one person as a “front runner”, who will be president if it wins the election.

The other two members will be appointed to the Council of Presidential Advisers.

But a requirement should be put in place that a minority candidate be designated the front runner when this method does not throw up a minority president after a few terms, said Mr Theseira.

He added that this way of electing presidents is similar to how teams are elected for group representation constituencies in parliamentary elections.

He said it would give minorities a fair chance of being elected to the highest office of the land, adding that it would affirm all races are treated equally.

Professor Chan Heng Chee, a commission member and chairman of the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, said such requirements would make it a “restricted election” as well.

But Mr Theseira said the GRC-style election “dilutes the impact slightly” as the slate will be multiracial.

“As a society, we’ve had experience doing that in the parliamentary elections with the GRCs, and I think that is something that people are used to,” he added.

Responding, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, the commission’s chairman, said: “It’s really a question of palatability, right? Because in substance, it comes down to the same thing.”

yuenc@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on April 23, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

A 49-year-old lawyer wants rules introduced for campaigning during the presidential election because the last polls were politicised to the point that unrealistic promises were made.

Mr Rey Foo proposed that before candidates are issued certificates of eligibility, they must make a declaration that they understand the role of the president.

Candidates must also not make what he called “grandiose promises” that are outside the scope of the presidency to fulfil, he said yesterday at the second public hearing of the Constitutional Commission to review the elected presidency.

But he did not cite any instance of politicising that he said occurred in the presidential polls in 2011, when four candidates contested and President Tony Tan Keng Yam won by a slim margin.

In making his suggestion, Mr Foo said: “The election process for the elected president should be of an entirely different flavour compared with the normal general election for Parliament seats.

“The style… in the past election was very similar to the political type of election. I don’t think that should be the case.”

To enforce the proposed rules for campaigning, a tribunal can be set up to look into complaints of breaches, he said. Candidates should be disqualified from running if they break the rules twice, he added.

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who chairs the commission, said the tribunal’s role would be similar to that of an election judge who looks into wrongdoing during parliamentary and presidential elections.

Mr Foo said it could be adapted from the existing institution.

But former Parliament Speaker Abdullah Tarmugi, a member of the commission, raised the issue of who should be allowed to report a possible infringement.

If members of the public could do so, the tribunal could be inundated by cases. But if only candidates could file complaints, the process could become a source of conflict among candidates seeking the office.

Mr Foo replied that a candidate who makes a false allegation would risk his reputation, but acknowledged that the procedure needs to be fine-tuned.

When asked if he felt Singaporeans were clear about the elected presidency, he said that based on his experience, people did not have a full understanding of the role, responsibilities and powers of the office.

Schools should teach the younger generation about it, he added.

CJ Menon noted that others at the first hearing had also emphasised the need for public education.

It was a point he raised again when a group of Singapore Management University law students gave their views on the six-man Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA).

They suggested the CPA’s advice to the president be published with the presidential decision for reasons of transparency, adding that it would help people better understand the role of the office.

CJ Menon said that implicit in this suggestion was the need for greater education. “One of the points implicit about this thing is that there is a need for people in Singapore to have an appreciation not only in the role of the president, the nature of the functions he has, but as well with the CPA, what the CPA can and cannot do.”

In an earlier exchange with the Eurasian Association’s representatives, CJ Menon said members of the public tend to focus on the president’s custodial role over the country’s reserves.

But the president performs other important functions as well, such as approving key public service appointments, he said.

ziliang@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on April 23, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

The question of how much to alter the eligibility criteria for presidential poll candidates came up for discussion yesterday, with the chairman of the Constitutional Commission reviewing the elected presidency giving his view on the issue.

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said at his commission’s second hearing: “What we’re trying to do is to examine whether the constitutional provision can be drafted in such a way that it can withstand the test of time, and for that to happen, what we’re dealing with is trying to define (the) criteria.”

In doing so, the search is for a configuration of criteria that will yield “a pool that’s likely to throw up a sufficient number of suitable candidates”, he added.

Many who took part in the first two hearings, held on Monday and yesterday, had said the criteria should be made more stringent.

But they also expressed concerns that this could shrink the pool of potential candidates, and urged the commission not to go overboard in raising the bar. They were referring to a requirement that private sector candidates have experience running a company with a paid-up capital of at least $100 million to qualify.

CJ Menon said: “You can’t set the criteria by looking at the individuals and say I think at this level we will have so many suitable candidates, it’s because we know exactly who the candidates are. I don’t think that’s the way to go about it.”

Yesterday, lawyer Ranvir Kumar Singh, 57, suggested that the amount be raised to $500 million, using Singtel as a benchmark. He said the company’s value had increased five times since the elected presidency was implemented in 1991.

CJ Menon said the $500 million threshold would capture the top 0.2 per cent of firms here – the same proportion captured in 1991 when the threshold was $100 million.

Mr Singh also proposed looking at the net assets, governance record and profitability of companies, to determine if a potential candidate had done a good job.

Commission member Wong Ngit Liong, chairman and chief executive of Venture Corporation, noting it would involve a qualitative change to the criteria, asked if the Presidential Elections Committee would be making more subjective judgments when deciding who qualifies to run.

Mr Singh said the committee’s members must be of a high calibre to be in a position to judge.

Another commission member, Mr Philip Ng, chief executive of Far East Organisation, said an issue it was tasked to examine is how to phase in new criteria, if any. Mr Singh said he had not thought about that.

This article was first published on April 23, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

MANILA – The Singapore Government has denied claims being spread online in the Philippines that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has endorsed presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte.

The denial by the Singapore embassy in Manila came about after the supposed Singapore endorsement was spread in social media in the last few days.

In the posting, a photo of PM Lee was presented with the caption “Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is the only presidential candidate that could make Philippines like Singapore”, according to a report in ABS-CBN News.

In a statement on its website, the Singapore embassy said: “The Embassy has learned of a FB (Facebook) post mischievously alleging that the Prime Minister of Singapore endorses a presidential candidate for the upcoming presidential election in the Philippines.

“This is untrue. Singapore does not endorse any candidate. The choice is for Filipinos alone to make. We wish the Philippines well in the conduct of its elections.”

Mr Duterte – mayor of Davao – is the front runner in the May 9 election, according to opinion polls.

The other candidates are senators Grace Poe and Miriam Santiago, Vice-President Jejomar Binay and former interior minister Mar Roxas.

This article was first published on April 23, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

The increase in COE supply in the period of May to July was expected to drive premiums southward.

But throw in private-hire companies like Uber and Grab, which are snapping up COEs aggressively to build up their fleets, and the game changes.

That is why all prospective car buyers can talk about now is whether they should wait for COE prices to soften because of the larger COE supply, or buy their cars now before premiums go up due to higher demand from private-hire companies.

UniSIM’s Adjunct Associate Professor Park Byung Joon told The New Paper that there is no good or bad time to buy a car because it is hard to predict which way COE prices will go.

“Everyone predicted that the COE premiums will gradually decline because of the number of COEs.

“But these private-hire companies are kind of unexpected,” said Prof Park, the former head of UniSIM’s urban transport management programme.

The Land Transport Authority announced last week that car COEs would increase by 14 per cent to 8,384 a month during the May to July period.

Whether the premiums go up or down will depend on how aggressively private-hire companies bid for the COEs, said UniSIM’s senior lecturer Dr Walter Theseira.

In the most recent bidding exercise, Uber reportedly secured 14 per cent of the total COE bids across the three categories, which helped drive COE prices up by up to 5.5 per cent.

In the previous bidding cycle, Uber-owned Lion City Rental submitted more than 800 bids, which accounted for 11 per cent of the total bids made for car COEs.

That is why Singapore Vehicle Traders Association’s first vice-president Raymond Tang believes COE prices will remain firm or go up.

The economy could also drive more people to work as an Uber or a Grab driver, which will in turn contribute to the rising demand from private-hire companies, Mr Tang said.

And it is not just the private-hire companies.

In the past few years, car rental and leasing companies have been doing quite well.

“When they have customers wanting to lease or rent new cars from them, they also join in the bidding,” Mr Tang said.

DON’T WAIT

“If you need a car and your financial status allows it, you should not wait. You won’t be able to predict what is going up or coming down when it comes to COEs.”

Still, there are other factors that may exert downward pressure on COE prices.

While Dr Theseira said that COE demand could increase, the economics lecturer suspects that aggregate demand for cars could eventually fall.

“Demand could fall because some consumers who might normally buy a car could find that all their private transport needs are met by Uber or Grab and taxis,” he said.

“Overall, I suspect that aggregate demand for cars will eventually fall because of the ease of taking private transport.

“Why buy the car when you can effectively rent the service only when you need it?”

Even if the premiums do drop, Prof Park said it will be unrealistic to expect a substantial drop.

“My advice: Don’t panic buy, but don’t panic delay,” he said.

“If you plan to buy a car, just go ahead and don’t delay your purchase, hoping that something will happen to the COEs.”

Dr Theseira said: “Timing a car purchase is just like timing the stock market. It is hard to do and generally doesn’t work.”

He suggested buying a used car rather than a new one, because a substantial part of the cost is the depreciation that is incurred from buying a new ride.

fjieying@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on April 23, 2016.
Get The New Paper for more stories.