After our incumbent President Halimah Yacob waved her goodbyes at the National Day Parade, which just passed, are you ready to see a new President?
It seems like President Halimah Yacob’s successor will be a male President again.
The fourth candidate who has joined the Presidential race is Mr Tan Kin Lian.
His campaign is branding himself as “The People’s President”, and he is pushing the theme “Bring Back Trust, Give Us Hope”.
Here is more about Mr Tan’s presidential bid.
Mr Tan Kin Lian Officially Announced His Presidential Bid
Earlier today, Mr Tan Kin Lian held a press conference at Copthorne King’s Hotel to officially announce his bid for presidency, reported The Straits Times.
He also revealed his theme of “Bring Back Trust, Give Us Hope” which he intends to use to woo voters with.
During the press conference, Mr Tan, who is 75 years old, said that he wants to work with the government to ensure that the nation’s financial reserves are used wisely for the benefit of current and future generations.
He also wanted to ensure that the right people helm the top positions in public service to “give a new vigour to our governance”.
All these sound like lofty goals which Mr Tan put forth.
With Mr Tan’s interest to run for the highest public office of the land, he brings the total pool of presidential hopefuls this year to four.
The other three presidential hopefuls are former Senior Minister Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former GIC investment chief Mr Ng Kok Song and businessman-entrepreneur Mr George Goh.
Mr Tan is the former chief executive of NTUC Income.
With all these impressive people going head-to-head, it remains to be seen who will prevail to capture the hearts of the locals.
That is if they can get past the scrutiny of whether they hold enough accolades to be eligible to run for presidency.
As of now, based on the criteria for the President of Singapore, only former Senior Minister Mr Tharman is clearly eligible to run for President.
For those who find Mr Tan’s name or face familiar, it may be because he previously ran for president 12 years ago.
Mr Tan garnered 4.61% of the votes back in 2011.
If anything, Mr Tan’s courage to stand for election again despite his previous loss shows his tenacity and passion to serve the people of Singapore.
Or perhaps he has too much money to spare and doesn’t mind risking his deposit ($40,500 for this year’s presidential election) if he does not get the minimum level of support from his fellow voters.
Whatever the case is, Mr Tan is definitely a candidate to watch in the upcoming Nomination Day and Polling Day.
