SINGAPORE — Presidential candidate Tan Kin Lian believes that the process of a presidential election in Singapore is an “unproductive exercise” and that the country should go back to a system of an appointed presidency.
“I think it might happen that we’ll go back to the old system where the Parliament will appoint the President. We spend so much time to elect a President, then we end up telling the President that ‘these are the things you cannot do’,” he said on Saturday at a members-only event organised by the National University of Singapore Society .
Analysts have repeatedly pointed out that matters pertaining to policy-making are not under the purview of the President. “It’ll be better for Singapore if we don’t have this complicated system. No matter what we do, there will be a lot of problems with the current elected president system,” he said. “Of course the worry of the people who advise the cabinet is 'if you let go one, then everybody will come'. I don’t believe that.
“And if the Cabinet decides against me, which they have the power to do, it will not be so respectful. And I ask the Cabinet to respect the president,” he said. “It's quite complicated. It is something you must respect the Finance Minister and his team of people. They make that decision. Ordinary people who don't know enough about the subject should not try to say we must do something else,” he said.
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