Speaking at a public forum over the recently-imposed Presidential election changes, a Eurasian Singaporean representative complained that Eurasians are considered Indian under the Presidential candidacy law.
The President of the Eurasian Association of Singapore, Benett Theseira, criticised the definition of Eurasian in the candidacy regulations which lumped them under the Indian category.
“Indians outnumbered Eurasians 20 to 1. So it makes it difficult for (there to be) an Eurasian president.”
The close-door forum held at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) yesterday (Oct 21) were attended by 223 PAP-linked individuals through invite-only. When questioned why is there a need for the racist re-writing of the Constitution when Indian candidate Murali Pillai won his own single member constituency in 2015, Law Minister K Shanmugam said that the PAP MP won because of his party.
“This is a false comparison. When you vote in an SMC, remember the party is a significant factor. There’s a certain premium based on which party standsThen the candidate carries a certain percentage.”
Law Shanmugam then tacitly admitted that Singaporean voters are not racist and that his government is just “dealing with the problem before it arise”:
“When you have say two people of equal standing for elections. Is there anyone in this room who believes that not even 10 to 15 per cent of the population would be influenced by the factor of race? Our view was that we always deal with these problems well before they arise.”
Early in Feb 2016, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ordered a committee to propose presidential election changes to exclude Dr Tan Cheng Bock, who signaled his intention to contest in the next election. Dr Tan Cheng Bock almost won the PAP-appointed candidate in the 2011 Presidential race and hence Lee Hsien Loong’s government re-designed the candidacy regulations that reserved the next Presidential position only for the Malays, under a new racist constitution that reserves seat for a race that was not elected after 4 consecutive elections.