SINGAPORE – Explaining why changes to the Elected Presidency scheme have to be made now, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reiterated on Tuesday (Nov 8) that it would be irresponsible for him to “kick this can down the road and leave the problem to my successors”.
Pointing out that he has been involved with the scheme almost right from the start, he told the House that he would be better placed than his successors to make the amendments.
As a young Cabinet minister, he helped Mr Goh Chok Tong and his team develop Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s concept into a complete scheme. He also helped Prof S Jayakumar to draft the White Papers in 1988 and 1990.
“Since the Elected Presidency began (in 1991), I have been operating the mechanism that we designed, and discovering its glitches. I helped to refine and amend the scheme as we went along… So I think I can say that I know the system,” he said. After becoming the Prime Minister in 2004, he has worked closely with two Elected Presidents, Mr S R Nathan and Dr Tony Tan.
Given that his successors have not had this long experience with the system, they would “find it much harder to deal with (it)”, he noted.
While he expects his successors to make further improvements and adjustments to the EP scheme in the future, he believes the changes in the Bill currently put before Parliament will make the scheme “work better for Singapore, now and in the future”.
Nevertheless, he warned that “whatever we do, it is not cast-iron and fool-proof – things can still go wrong in Singapore, with Singapore politics”. A Government may be elected with good intentions, only to find its policies turning out badly, or a President may be elected on a basis different from his Constitutional role. Relations between the President and the Government may also become strained, or even break down.
Fundamentally, Singaporeans may be split along fault lines of race, religion, income or class. If that happens, no political system will produce a stable government for the country, added Mr Lee.
Reiterating that all these scenarios are possible, Mr Lee said that strengthening the EP will reduce the chances of these happening. “We know that without the Elected President, we have more cause to worry that things can go disastrously wrong,” he said.
