Today-Sept 2
Singaporeans have elected the country’s ninth President, following a landslide victory for Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam who garnered 70.4 per cent of the votes despite what had appeared to be a bruising electoral fight with his rivals during the hustings. In the end, Mr Ng Kok Song, 75, former chief investment officer of sovereign wealth fund GIC, received 15.72 per cent of the votes while Mr Tan Kin Lian, 75, former chief executive officer of NTUC Income insurance cooperative, got 13.88 per cent. The results were announced by Returning Officer Tan Meng Dui at around 12.20am on Saturday (Sept 2) — more than four hours after polling closed on Friday night — although the sample count released less than two hours earlier had already accurately projected the margin of victory. A total of 2,530,912 voters cast their ballots, representing about 93.4 per cent of the total number of registered voters, which is marginally lower than the 94.65 per cent voter turnout in the previous contested Presidential Election (PE) in 2011. The last PE in 2017 was reserved for ethnic Malays and won by Madam Halimah Yacob via a walkover. President Halimah’s six-year term will end on Sept 13 and Mr Tharman will be inaugurated as President the following day. Posting on Facebook after the release of the final results, Mr Tharman said: “I believe the vote for me and what I stood for is a vote of confidence in Singapore itself, a vote of optimism in how we can progress together and support each other as Singaporeans.” Painting a vision of this future, he said it would be one of “closer interactions between our different faiths and cultures”, as well as one of “solidarity even as we hold to diverse views, which is natural in our democracy”. Read more at: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/pe-2023-tharman-president-landslide-win-pledges-usher-future-optimism-solidarity-2245636
