Singapore Holds First Presidential Election In Decade

Singaporeans have headed to the polls to vote in their first contested presidential election in over a decade.

The President whose primary role is ceremonial, formally oversees the city’s substantial financial reserves and holds the authority to veto specific measures, and also approve anti-corruption investigations.

The Leading candidate Tharman Shanmugaratnam was a veteran Minister of Singapore’s PAP, a Former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the 66-year-old economist resigned from the People’s Action Party in June to contest the presidential election.

Mr Shanmugaratnam is the frontrunner in the vote, the first to be contested in more than a decade after outgoing President Halimah Yacob declined to contest a second six-year term.

The other candidates include Tan Kin Lian, a 75-year-old former insurance executive who has been criticised for social media posts he made in the past about women and  Indians.

Ng Kok Song, a former wealth fund investment officer is also a candidate in the contested election.

The candidates’ ethnicities in the multicultural but majority-Chinese city-state has been one of the issues too with some highlighting Mr Shanmugaratnam may become the first non-Chinese President to be elected by voters.

BBC