Elected Presidency: Symbolism must ring true in S'poreans' daily experience, says PM Lee

SINGAPORE — Changes to the Elected Presidency (EP) scheme will strengthen racial harmony and the sense of identity and belonging of all ethnic groups, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 

As the head of state, the President is a "unifying symbol of the nation" and must be someone that Singaporeans of all races can identity with, said Mr Lee, who addressed hundreds of community and religious leaders, as well as representatives from schools and workplaces at the launch of the SGSecure movement on Saturday (Sept 24).

In a White Paper put up last week, the Government broadly accepted recommendations put up by the Constitutional Committee tasked to review various aspects of the EP scheme, including a "hiatus triggered" mechanism where presidential elections will be reserved for a particular race which has not been represented in the office for five consecutive terms.

Mr Lee said: "Racial harmony is one of the major motivations for us to make changes to the Elected Presidency... Every citizen must feel that one of his community can become President and regularly does become President because that is a symbol representing all of us."

He quoted the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's words on the Republic's first national day in 1965: "This is not a Malay Singapore, not an Indian Singapore, not a Chinese Singapore. This is for everyone." The symbolism of the President "must ring true with the day to day experience of Singaporeans living in our multi-racial society", stressed Mr Lee.

Calling for Singaporeans not to take racial and religious harmony for granted, Mr Lee noted that in many other societies, multi-racialism are celebrated on stage during occasions such as independence days but they are "not a reality". "But in Singapore, (the racial relations we experience) in real life have to match and do match what we celebrate on National Day," he said.

Mr Lee urged Singaporeans to build friendships across different races and religions and to speak out against intolerance. He said: "When people incite division and misunderstanding between different races or religions, we have to act firmly against them...This is one of the areas where we are hypersensitive and it is a no-go."

Amendments to the EP scheme will be introduced at the Parliament sitting next month and Members of Parliament will debate on the White Paper in November.