SINGAPORE: A local Reddit user who put up an Ng Kok Song appreciation post on Sept 2 (Saturday), the day after the Presidential Election, received a lot of responses from commenters, many of whom expressed respect for the presidential bid of the former GIC group chief investment officer.
“Thanks Mr Ng,” wrote u/wyattmhall on r/Singapore. “Just want to say that I appreciate that he put himself out there so that Singaporeans could have some kind of choice.
It’s not easy to put yourself in the limelight and be under intense scrutiny. It would be far easier to rant and b**h online or just be apathetic.
People may disagree about his perceived affiliations and merit. But imo he was a relatively reasonable and credible choice nevertheless.”
In the first contested Presidential election in over ten years, Singaporeans trooped to the polls on Friday and elected former Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, 66, by a wide margin. He won with 70.4 per cent of the vote.
The other candidates trailed by a considerable margin, Mr Ng, 75, getting 15.72 per cent and former chief executive officer of NTUC Income Tan Kin Lian, 75, getting 13.88 per cent of the vote.
Other Reddit users pointed out that he “ran a good campaign” and had been a “worthy opponent” for Mr Tharman.
“He showed himself as a classy and worthy candidate. Full respect for this man,” wrote one.
Another chimed in that “he seemed pretty gracious and wasn’t a sore loser when he saw the results. It seemed like he just wanted to be there to give it a try.”
“If I were him, I would sleep well at night knowing in this life, I ran for president, was qualified, put up a good fight, 390k ppl voted for me and lost to Tharman,” opined a Reddit user.
“Him coming forward as a choice is a win in itself,” one wrote.
Another said he thinks “a good portion of the moderate/swing electorate liked him too, they just liked Tharman more.”
“I’m quite surprised that he only managed to get 16% of the votes. I was expecting 20+%,” wrote another.
“He would have made a decent President if only Tharman wasn’t running. He is an eloquent speaker and his role as former Chief Investment Officer of GIC makes him qualified to protect our country’s reserves,” a Reddit user wrote.
Several commenters praised him and his fiancee, Ms Sybil Lau, for opening themselves up to public scrutiny, which came with many unkind comments.
And one netizen who voted for him said, “I’m one of the 390K too. Hope that his public exposure will now open more doors for him to serve Singapore in other ways. Companies and organizations will be lucky to have him on their boards.”
/TISG
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