Updated benchmarks needed for future presidential candidates: PM Lee

Constitutional commission to also look at ways to ensure periodic election of a minority candidate, study greater weight for presidential advisers

Lee U-Wen

Published Wed, Jan 27, 2016 · 09:50 PM

Singapore politics

Singapore

CHANGES to Singapore's elected presidency system are afoot, chief among them the likelihood that the qualifying criteria will be tightened to ensure that only the most capable make the final cut.

The government is also mooting the idea of a mechanism to ensure that a minority candidate can be periodically elected if the country has not had a particular minority race as president for some time.

Outlining these ideas in a major parliamentary speech lasting 90 minutes on Wednesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed the importance of Singapore having "good politics and good policies".

His address to the House was in response to President Tony Tan Keng Yam's remarks at the opening of Parliament on Jan 15, when he announc…