No requirement that President should be ‘dumb’: Tan Kin Lian

Presidential hopeful Tan Kin Lian says that he has looked at the Constitution and has not found any requirement that "the President should be dumb".

In his blog posting on Saturday, he was responding to comments made by Law Minister K. Shanmugam at a forum on Friday on the President's roles and responsibilities.

Agreeing with Minister Shanmugam that the President's duties should be carried out as stated in the Constitution, he said that if elected, he would carry out the duties within the Constitution and to bring issues of the people to the Government in a constructive and cooperative manner.

However, he added that he did not agree with the minister's views "that the President cannot speak on anything else without the approval of the Government", and said, "I find the Law Minister's interpretation to be too narrow. It seemed to give the President less freedom of speech than an ordinary citizen of Singapore."

The former NTUC Income chief executive officer reassured Singaporeans that he will bring up issues that are legitimate and affect large numbers of people.

"I will be 'the voice of the people' in conveying these issues to the Government," he wrote.

He also urged the Government to adopt a more open approach towards the issues of the people, and said, "There is no need to politicise these issues. If they are legitimate issues, let us adopt an open and constructive approach to solve them."

"Many of these issues are best solved when they are discussed openly in a forum and bring the views of the impartial experts and also the views of the people who are affected by them."