Mixed-race Teams for Presidential Contest Most Plausible Approach: Experts

TODAY

23 August 2016

Having presidential candidates contest in mixed-race teams appears the most plausible approach to ensuring that minorities in the Republic get elected as President, political watchers and constitutional law experts said yesterday.

One advantage of this approach is that it mirrors the concept of Group Representation Constitutencies (GRC) for parliamentary elections, which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said has become accepted as an important stabiliser in the Republic’s political landscape.

It also avoids the possibility that the elected candidate’s legitimacy and mandate could be affected, unlike the approach of restricting contests to minorities periodically, they added.

The experts were commenting on Mr Lee’s remarks during the National Day Rally on Sunday, where he devoted a significant portion of all three of his speeches reiterating the need to ensure non-Chinese get elected as head of state regularly.

… Associate Professor Alan Chong, from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, added: “The public may ask if we need to pay for two presidents.”

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Last updated on 23/08/2016