SINGAPORE — With a political career spanning 22 years, Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, 66, first started out as a student activist in the United Kingdom before entering politics, eventually rising to the highest rungs of leadership positions in the Government as well as in global organisations such as the International Monetary Fund.

On Friday (August 18), he was declared eligible to contest in the upcoming Presidential Election on Sept 1. 

This comes more than a month after Mr Tharman retired from politics and stepped down from all his positions in Government, including his appointments as Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for Social Policies, and as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Jurong Group Representation Constituency (GRC), from July 7.

Here is a look back at Mr Tharman’s career so far.

SPORTSMAN, POET AND ACTIVIST BEFORE POLITICS

A student activist while studying in the United Kingdom during the 1970s, Mr Tharman completed his undergraduate education at the London School of Economics, where he was conferred a bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1981.

In interviews with local media over the years, Mr Tharman had expressed a taking a keen interest in politics in his youth, as well as in sports, especially competitive ones like hockey. 

In 1978, Mr Tharman penned and published four poems for a book that he co-edited with Mr Chew Kheng Chuan, a former chairman of The Substation, and Mr Yeoh Lam Keong, a former GIC chief economist.

“I actually enjoy politics, both as a MP and as a minister. Part of the reason is because I was always interested in politics from my student days. I spent a lot of time on student activism when I was in the UK,” he told news portal AsiaOne in an interview in 2016.

In Dec 1982, he began his career in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS') economics department and would spend most of his early professional career at the central bank until 1995.

As a director at the MAS department, Mr Tharman was fined S$1,500 for breaching the Official Secrets Act, alongside then-editor of The Business Times (BT), Mr Patrick Daniel, and BT journalist Kenneth James, after the newspaper published a report citing an official quarterly projection of Singapore’s economic growth before such data was officially released. 

Mr Tharman later joined the Ministry of Education, initially as deputy secretary and later as senior deputy secretary in Sept 1997.

In Dec 1997, Mr Tharman was seconded to the MAS as its deputy managing director. While with the MAS, Mr Tharman took up an MAS scholarship to study Public Administration at Harvard University, where he received the Lucius N Littauer Fellow award for outstanding performance and leadership potential.

Responding to queries about his past conviction after he joined politics, Mr Tharman said that his integrity was never challenged, BT reported.

“No one concluded, including the court, that I had done anything deliberately. So my integrity was never challenged, never in doubt both during and after the case,” he said.

“The facts are simply that I had a document with me at a meeting between MAS officials and the private sector. A private sector economist said he saw a figure from across the table. I did not give any official secret to anyone and the court records show this.”

POLITICAL AND CAREER HISTORY

In Oct 2001, Mr Tharman resigned as MAS managing director to contest in the general election as a PAP candidate in the newly formed Jurong GRC, alongside fellow candidates Madam Halimah Yacob, then-labour chief Lim Boon Heng, Mr Ong Chit Chung and Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon.

They beat the team from the Singapore Democratic Party at the ballot box, garnering a convincing 79.75 per cent of the vote.

Mr Tharman has been re-elected four times since and continues to hold the position of MP for Jurong GRC today, where he is its anchor minister.

Since May 2019, Mr Tharman has been Senior Minister, and is concurrently the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies. He is also chairman of the MAS, a position he has held since 2011.

Prior to being appointed Senior Minister, Mr Tharman had served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2011 until 2019. He was also Minister for Finance between 2007 and 2015, and Minister for Education for five years between 2004 and 2008.

He is known for his take on Singapore's social policies, with one particular phrase becoming viral after he was questioned by BBC Hardtalk presenter Stephen Sackur in Switzerland about Singapore’s safety nets in a 2015 interview.

“I believe in the notion of a trampoline,” he said in response to the host.

“There are ways in which an active government can intervene to support social mobility, to develop opportunities and to take care of the old, which don’t undermine personal and family responsibility. And that’s the compact that we’re trying to achieve. It’s almost a paradox.”

In the last general election in 2020, the five-person PAP team that Mr Tharman led claimed the largest victory in any constituency, winning 74.62 per cent of the votes against new party Red Dot United.

This was despite allegations surrounding one of the team’s candidates Ivan Lim that drew negative attention to the team during its campaign.

A poll in 2016 showed that he was the most popular choice among respondents to be Prime Minister. He later “categorically” stated he had no ambitions for the post, in response to reporters’ questions.

Speaking to the media at a doorstop interview in Sept 2016, Mr Tharman said: “Just to be absolutely clear, because I know of this talk that’s going around, I’m not the man for PM. I say that categorically. It’s not me. I know myself, I know what I can do, and it’s not me.

“I’m good at policymaking, I’m good at advising my younger colleagues, and at supporting the Prime Minister — not at being the Prime Minister. That’s not my ambition, and it’s not me,” he added.

CONFERRED INTERNATIONAL AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Beyond Singapore’s shores, Mr Tharman has held high profile posts at various international organisations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

When then-IMF chief Christine Lagarde was set to leave the fund in 2019, Mr Tharman was floated as a potential successor, though the role was eventually given to Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva.

Mr Tharman also chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) — the key policy forum of the IMF — for four years, making him the committee’s first Asian chair.

In Oct 2019, Mr Tharman received the inaugural Distinguished Leadership and Service Award from the Institute of International Finance in recognition of his contributions to global financial governance and public service.