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Confirmed: Tharman, Ng Kok Song & Tan Kin Lian Qualify to Run for President; George Goh Not Eligible

2023-08-18 , 4:32 pm

Ladies and gents, it’s a beautiful time to be alive; we’ll probably have a public holiday on 1 September, courtesy of the qualifying presidential candidates.

It has been confirmed that former senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former GIC investment chief Ng Kok Song, and former NTUC Income chief Tan Kin Lian qualify to run for president.

Tharman, Ng Kok Song & Tan Kin Lian Confirmed to Qualify for Presidential Elections; George Goh Failed to Qualify

On Friday (18 August), the Elections Department (ELD) issued a statement confirming that Tharman, Ng and Tan have successfully obtained their certificates of eligibility from the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC).

The ELD received six applications for the certificate of eligibility, meaning that three applicants were rejected.

Notice that a prominent name is missing—George Goh Ching Wah, the entrepreneur who brought Harvey Norman to Singapore.

Well, perhaps Courts is the better retailer of furniture and electrical products.

All jokes aside, why did George Goh fail to obtain a certificate of eligibility?

Neither George Goh nor the ELD disclosed the reason behind the presidential hopeful’s failure to qualify. To be fair, the ELD does not publish the names of unsuccessful applicants nor the reasons behind their rejection.

Regardless, ELD did state that the three successful applicants had their applications accepted because the PEC was satisfied that they were of integrity, good character and reputation.

We’re guessing the opposite is true for George Goh, but we’ll never know for sure.

Tharman: Public Sector Service Requirement

There are a few ways to apply for a certificate of eligibility to qualify for the presidential elections. Tharman, of course, went by the standard public sector service requirement route.

While there are a few ways to fulfil this requirement, the standard one is to have held office for three or more years as Minister, Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament, blah blah. You get the drill; it’s a list of critical public sector roles.

This requirement is peanuts to Tharman—he has spent his entire working life in the public service. He’s not the former senior minister for nothing.

So, of course, the 66-year-old received his certificate of eligibility from the PEC.

Ng Kok Song: Public Sector Deliberative Route

Ng Kok Song, the former GIC investment chief, takes a different route—the public sector deliberative route.

This differs from Tharman’s route in the sense that instead of having helped office for three or more years in those key public sector roles, the PEC must be satisfied that Ng had served three or more years as the chief executive of key statutory boards and government companies.

And in case you didn’t already know, GIC is a company wholly owned by the Singapore government. This makes it a government company.

Having served as GIC’s chief investment officer from 2007 to 2013, the PEC was also satisfied that the 75-year-old fulfils the criteria under the public sector deliberative route.

Certificate of eligibility obtained.

“I will give my very best to this presidential bid, as I seek the privilege to be of service and build a united Singapore for the future,” the candidate shared.

Tan Kin Lian: Private Sector Deliberative Route

The last candidate who obtained a certificate of eligibility from the PEC is 75-year-old Tan, the former NTUC Income chief.

Tan had applied for the certificate under the private sector deliberative route.

“My volunteers and I will work hard in the campaign to offer to the people of Singapore the choice of electing a president who is independent of the ruling government,” the 75-year-old shared after receiving his certificate of eligibility.

He also added that he was disappointed about George Goh’s inability to obtain a certificate of eligibility—pretty nice of him, given that George Goh made several snarky comments about Tan earlier.

Guess karma is real. You can read more about the beef between George Goh and Tan Kin Lian here.

ELD’s Non-Disclosure of Reasons Behind Rejection of Applicants

Unless George Goh reveals the reasons behind his failure to qualify, Singaporeans will never know if the beef between him and Tan may have played a part in it.

You see, the ELD furnishes reasons in writing to all rejected applicants for failing to qualify. The catch is this: the ELD is not allowed to disclose these reasons.

They aren’t even allowed to publish the names of unsuccessful applicants—we only know that Goh was unsuccessful because he made his presidential bid very public.

Buey paiseh.

There are only a few rare situations where the ELD can disclose reasons for rejecting unsuccessful applicants.

This includes when the applicant’s application was not made according to legal requirements, when the applicant decides to publish the reasons given to them by the PEC, and when the PEC opines that publishing the reasons is necessary to respond to public allegations against the PEC.

So, we’ll have to wait and see if Goh decides to disclose the reasons for his inability to obtain a certificate of eligibility.

What’s Next for the Presidential Elections?

Now that Tharman, Ng and Tan have received their certificates of eligibility, their next step is to be nominated as candidates on Nomination Day on Tuesday (22 Aug).

Unless they forget to bring their nomination papers, certificate of eligibility, community certificate or political donation certificate that day, they should be fine lah.

The candidates will then be able to start campaigning until the start of cooling-off day, which comes at the end of the month on 31 August.

Then, it’ll finally be the day every Singaporean is looking forward to—polling day on 1 September.

Public holiday, shiok!

If you’d like to know whether you can vote on polling day, you can find out more here.