Halimah Yacob finally announces intention to contest Presidential Election

Mdm Halimah Yacob has finally announced her intention to contest the upcoming Presidential Election. In a speech today at a National Day dinner at Marsiling Mega Sports Park, she said:

“I recognise that the position of the elected President has the tremendous capacity to do good for all Singaporeans and for Singapore.

“Hence, I wish to inform you that I will be contesting in the coming Presidential Election.”

She added that she will resign from her positions as Speaker of Parliament and Member of Parliament for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC tomorrow, 7 August 2017.

Mdm Halimah has been expected to announce her intention to contest for some time now, ever since Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Chan Chun Sing, referred to her as ‘President’ twice in Parliament in February this year.

Mr Chan also confirmed earlier this year that no by-election will be called if a minority candidate in a GRC resigned to contest the Presidential Election.

Mdm Halimah was fielded and elected as the minority candidate for Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC.

Mr Chan explained that the GRC system, which requires each team to include at least one member of a minority race, has been in place since 1988, and that it has two purposes: first, to ensure enough minority members in Parliament and secondly, to ensure no political campaign on issues of race and religion.

He noted that there are 25 minority MPs out of 89 – “more than what you’d expect proportionately from adding up the percentage of Malays, Indians and other minorities”.

“Even if we have one less, that is 24 out of 89, which is 27 per cent of Parliament,” Mr Chan said.

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