Chitchat President - Recommended Changes

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

1) EP is reserved for minority candidate if no minority candidate for 5 previous terms
2) 2 categories of minority candidates (1) Malay and (2) Indian and others
3) Minority candidate must meet the same qualifying criteria
4) Qualifying criteria raised - harder to qualify
5) Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Jee Say no longer qualify but Tan Kin Lian (the one who lost his deposit) does
6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

scroobal said:

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

1) EP is reserved for minority candidate if no minority candidate for 5 previous terms
2) 2 categories of minority candidates (1) Malay and (2) Indian and others
3) Minority candidate must meet the same qualifying criteria
4) Qualifying criteria raised - harder to qualify
5) Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Jee Say no longer qualify but Tan Kin Lian (the one who lost his deposit) does
6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

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Just elect the Albino. He will please daddy and daddy's successor.

scroobal said:

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

1) EP is reserved for minority candidate if no minority candidate for 5 previous terms
2) 2 categories of minority candidates (1) Malay and (2) Indian and others
3) Minority candidate must meet the same qualifying criteria
4) Qualifying criteria raised - harder to qualify
5) Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Jee Say no longer qualify but Tan Kin Lian (the one who lost his deposit) does
6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

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regarding Para 5, I believe that there should be a "grandfather" clause which should allow prior candidates to be eligible.

Who cares? With no transparency and this kind of rubbish we can be rated as junk grade tomorrow. Because there is no objective reference of anything here. The coffers must be in shitz for this to happen. If it is loaded, no need. The investment bank debacles in the West are the best proof of such behavior.

scroobal said:

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

........
6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

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Re item 6, if say a rogue govt of the day decide to transfer country's reserve to their own party before they are being voted out, EP objected against the advise of the CPA (who were appointed by the PM(?) of govt, CPA inform parliament, aka govt of the day, and parliament override the EP and proceed to do what they wanted to do???

Tell me again purpose of EP, assuming he/she knows the value he/she is guarding!

Brightkid said:

Re item 6, if say a rogue govt of the day decide to transfer country's reserve to their own party before they are being voted out, EP objected against the advise of the CPA (who were appointed by the PM(?) of govt, CPA inform parliament, aka govt of the day, and parliament override the EP and proceed to do what they wanted to do???

Tell me again purpose of EP, assuming he/she knows the value he/she is guarding!

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Now we need election for the members of the Council of Presidential Advisors!

Nowadays whenever I watch TV I see LHL's face talking about the presidency. On the news it's the same thing. Well I think the presidency is nothing but a sham. He doesn't have any power. They also make sure that no "lesser mortal" can run for the position & that is why they put up all kinds of artificial barriers about past experience in running large corporations, blah, blah, blah,... to make it difficult for a "lesser mortal" to run for the position except someone from the PAP

I would rather have an independant presidenct who is not beholden to the PAP. However we know that this will not happen. The example of Ong Teng Cheong trying to do his job was just a fluke. Maybe that is why they decided to put family members like that KFC guy & that war criminal Prataman in the position. The war criminal did such a good job that they gave him a ride on the gun carriage while Ong Teng Cheong who wanted to dig further did not get a state funeral.

It may be easier just to allow all adult Singapore born citizens to be eligible as candidates for the elected President.
Please delete and repeal all the unnecessary criteria and qualifications.

Charlie99 said:

It may be easier just to allow all adult Singapore born citizens to be eligible as candidates for the elected President.
Please delete and repeal all the unnecessary criteria and qualifications.

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That's democracy ...if sinkees wish to vote in a hawker to be president, why not? Voters will pay the price for their decision. We don't need some so called scholars to tell us who to vote to be president.

winnipegjets said:

That's democracy ...if sinkees wish to vote in a hawker to be president, why not? Voters will pay the price for their decision. We don't need some so called scholars to tell us who to vote to be president.

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Good.
A hawker may be just as financially prudent and savvy as a CEO of a major corporation.

Charlie99 said:

Good.
A hawker may be just as financially prudent and savvy as a CEO of a major corporation.

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If that hawker can muster the resources to wage a presidential campaign, he must have some mettle in him. Unlike the PAP candidates where everything is provided and done for him. The PAP candidate just need to be a puppet. Even when he assumes office, he continues as a puppet. Look at him at the NDP parade. What a dog he is.

scroobal said:

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

1) EP is reserved for minority candidate if no minority candidate for 5 previous terms
2) 2 categories of minority candidates (1) Malay and (2) Indian and others
3) Minority candidate must meet the same qualifying criteria
4) Qualifying criteria raised - harder to qualify
5) Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Jee Say no longer qualify but Tan Kin Lian (the one who lost his deposit) does

6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

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wahhh lau , wayang until so obvious.

they should not waste tax payers money . just appoint anyone they want and pay a salary of 50K per month.
change job scope to : cut ribbon , attend function , entertain big shot from other country , make some speech occasionally.

The burning question when is it going to be implemented, during PE 2017 or after?

scroobal said:

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

1) EP is reserved for minority candidate if no minority candidate for 5 previous terms
2) 2 categories of minority candidates (1) Malay and (2) Indian and others
3) Minority candidate must meet the same qualifying criteria
4) Qualifying criteria raised - harder to qualify
5) Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Jee Say no longer qualify but Tan Kin Lian (the one who lost his deposit) does
6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

Click to expand...

Re pt 6. The EP is a joke now. The EP was supposed to thwart a freak parliament, where the majority were not PAP (let's be blunt). Now they insert the CPA to check the EP.
Heard of the old woman who swallowed a fly ?

I kinda like the idea. Since I very been passed for increments over the psst few years. It is only right this year they hv to give it to me n past others. Same for cpf payout. They hv held back so long. Time they pay out. And it goes for women doing ns.

It is also a good idea to read the full report to see how the commission approached the issues and why they made those recommendations There are some powers that do not have to be referred to the CPA and therefore do not go for a Parliamentary override if the President does not agree. These includes protective powers such as the detention under ISA and some historical discretionary powers. But these are not the important when it comes to functions of the executive.

It obvious that the Terms of reference framed not only the issues to be considered but also indicated what the broad conclusions should be or least thats what the Commission took it to be. The Commission also seem to have worked on the basis of pragmatism and efficiency rather than one of checks and balances. The use of the "pragmatic" has appeared a number of times. Written and oral contributions are cited and covered quite extensively throughout the report but my sense is that they were not material in any sense of the word in the way in the report.

It also interesting that IPS had done 2 previous surveys prior to the latest one commissioned by CNA. All 3 surveys are not consistent. Its interesting that one of the contributors cited IPS first survey that showed that when it comes to selections national leaders, the country was more colour blind. I won't be surprised that this submission just have triggered someone asking CNA to commission the latest survey and the result was the opposite.

One trivia was quite amusing - the tenure of the Presidential Advisors in the Council. Currently the first term is 6 years and the second is 4 years and the reason for the second shorter tenure is one of heath. It means that we have in our council members we are fragile individuals who are close to dying. In essence 12 years is not a realistic scenario that these advisors are expected to see out Though these are expected to be wise men of age and experience and seen the vagaries of life, it quite interesting that they are expected to be fragile in heath. The Commission recommended 6 years for re-appointments and using the consistent theme of "pragmatism" more or less suggested that if he is incapacitated due to health or death, appoint someone else to complete the term.

The other interesting item was that Commission felt that first past the post was best way to register a mandate even if it well below 50%. A run-off was rejected.

scroobal said:

Report from Commission released. Here is the summary of recommendations

1) EP is reserved for minority candidate if no minority candidate for 5 previous terms
2) 2 categories of minority candidates (1) Malay and (2) Indian and others
3) Minority candidate must meet the same qualifying criteria
4) Qualifying criteria raised - harder to qualify
5) Tan Cheng Bock, Tan Jee Say no longer qualify but Tan Kin Lian (the one who lost his deposit) does
6) Parliament can override EP if EP does not follow advice of CPA - Council of Presidential Advisors (truly lame duck EP)

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Number 5 will be the one most talked about. This is how accurately they have fine-tuned it. Every non-establishment anointed person who has a chance of winning an election is disqualified, except for that one person who is unelectable. I don't know whether they achieved this by pure luck or by pure genius but given the obvious lack of brain cells I am of course leaning to the former.

Number 6 is to me the most important. It shows complete insincerity in sharing any power - even limited custodial power (Executive power has been, and always will be, OUT of the question) - with the President. Yes, truly a lame duck. Why even bother to have an EP? Why all the charade and the expensive election process just to maintain a facade of an autonomous President?