SINGAPORE — After former Cabinet minister George Yeo and his team lost Aljunied Group Representation Constituency in the General Election (GE) in May 2011, Mr Yeo was called to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's office to talk about the Presidential Election which was to be held a few months later.
After former Cabinet minister George Yeo and his team lost Aljunied Group Representation Constituency in the General Election in May 2011, Mr Yeo was called to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's office to talk about the Presidential Election which was to be held a few months later.He told PM Lee he was “temperamentally unsuited to be president”, and would only do it out of duty and not out of ambition.
“In my mind, I was sure that Lee Kuan Yew preferred Dr Tony Tan to me for that role. I also thought that Dr Tan would be more suitable,” he said. Among the President's roles and responsibilities are important custodial functions: To safeguard the nation’s reserves, veto key public appointments and approve a corruption investigation if the Prime Minister refuses to authorise it.Mr Yeo does not hold any public office, though he sits on various boards and is a visiting scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Mr Yeo then joined Kerry Logistics Network and was its chairman and executive director from 2012 to 2019.In his book, he attributes his popularity after his departure from politics to a"guilt reaction" following his electoral loss. “I told him earlier that I would not be involved in campaigning for the coming Presidential Election but would be honoured to be one of his character references,” he wrote in the Facebook post.
Mr Yeo entered politics in 1988 while Mr Tharman was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2001. The two men were in the Cabinet together, from around 2003 to 2011. "If it’s a walkover for Tharman, I think he will be a weak President but if he has to fight to become President, and he has the mandate of the entire people, then he is better able to be a custodial President.
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