KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8 — In a bid to increase minority participation in its administration, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong today announced that his country’s 2017 presidential election will be reserved for Malays.
Lee made the announcement in Parliament today, according to Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times (ST).
“That means if a qualified Malay candidate steps up to run, Singapore will have a Malay president again... this would be our first after more than 46 years, since our first president Encik Yusof Ishak.” the news agency quoted Lim saying.
Yusof was appointed Singapore’s first head of state after the republic was expelled from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965.
Lee in August announced that the republic will amend its constitution to ensure its future presidents can be elected from among the ethnic minorities “from time to time”.
The Singapore president is the head of state but does not have executive powers, which is held by the prime minister as head of government.
ST reported that a reserved elections is one of the proposed changes to the elected presidency being debated in the Singapore Parliament this week, and the move is meant to ensure that minority presidents are elected occasionally.
Under the proposal, an election will be reserved for a particular race, should no representative from the community served as the republic’s president for five continuous terms, and that the candidates running in these reserved elections, will also have to meet the same criteria as those running in open elections.
“Every citizen, Chinese, Malay, Indian, or some other race, should know that someone of his community can become president, and in fact from time to time, does become president,” Lee was reported saying.
