Former Singapore deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was elected president on Friday. That’s according to official results following the first vote in more than a decade for this essentially honorary position in the city-state.
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The electoral authority announced that the 66-year-old economist won the election with 70.4% of the votes cast against his two rivals.
“Singaporeans have elected Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam as their next president by a clear majority,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a statement.
The new president will serve a six-year term, succeeding Halimah Yacob, who was elected unopposed in 2017.
“I think this is a vote of confidence for Singapore. It is a sign of optimism for a future where we can move forward together,” Shanmugaratnam said in a speech before the results were announced.
His main rival, Ng Kok Song, 75, previously an investment director at GIC (one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds that manages Singapore’s foreign exchange reserves), suffered defeat with 15.7% of the vote. “The bottom line is clear,” Mr Shanmugaratnam “has received a mandate from the people of Singapore,” he said.
The other candidate, businessman Tan Kin Lian, 75, received 13.88% of the vote. As a former managing director of the local insurance giant NTUC Income, he had already unsuccessfully contested the presidential election in 2011.
The United States welcomed the election of Tharman Shanmugaratnam, praising “mutual respect, shared values and common interests” with Singapore in a congratulatory message.
Although the office of president is largely ceremonial in nature, its holder oversees the city-state’s financial reserves, can veto certain measures, and authorizes anti-corruption investigations.
The government of this wealthy city-state has been led continuously since 1959 by the People’s Action Party (PAP). The head of state may not belong to any political party.
Mr Shanmugaratnam, a former finance minister, was a long-time pillar of the PAP before he resigned to run in the presidential election. His independence was questioned during the election campaign.
The PAP suffered from a series of political scandals in the run-up to the vote. And in 2020 he suffered his worst election result, facing a strengthening opposition but still retaining two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
This presidential election therefore also served as a test of the Singaporean population’s support for the existing government ahead of the general elections scheduled for 2025.
“What we want is a prosperous Singapore,” 70-year-old self-employed Patrick Low told AFP after the vote.
“The presidential election is increasingly being treated like a general election,” political analyst Mustafa Izzuddin from consultancy Solaris Strategies Singapore told AFP.
Although experts had expected an increase in votes for the opposition, the vote was not going in that direction, he added.
In Singapore, voting is compulsory for the approximately 2.7 million registered voters.