Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave an exclusive interview on Channel NewsAsia explaining the rationale behind the upcoming changes to the Elected Presidency last night (Sep 4).

Of the points raised, the most contentious one was the need to put in place a law to ensure that a minority candidate gets to be the President when there has not been a minority President for four-to-six terms according to PM Lee.

PM Lee said that the "President represents all Singaporeans, he is the figure representing not just a state but the nation, all of us; then we must have a minority President from time to time, non-Chinese, a Malay one, an Indian or other minority, and then people see that 'Yes, this is my country. Someone like me can become the head of state, can represent the country.'"

On concerns that Singaporeans will not appreciate this move, PM Lee said, "This is something which needs to be done ... I will persuade you that it is something that we should do and which is good for Singapore ... If we don't do this, we will have trouble for Singapore, not today, not tomorrow but 10, 15, 20 years' time. We ought to do it now before the problems come."

Comments online mostly disagree with this

Keeping out the unsavoury?

There have been comments that the changes were made to bar potential candidates like Tan Cheng Bock. Tan garnered an extremely respectable 738,311 votes (34.85 percent of the valid vote), just 7,382 votes fewer than current president Tony Tan in the 2011 Presidential Election (PE).

However, until the new laws for the Elected Presidency is announced, it is not known whether Tan will be disqualified as a candidate should he choose to run in the next PE.

PM Lee said that the updated laws "cannot guarantee that nobody who is going to be difficult will become president". This was also pointed out earlier by Minister Chan Chun Sing in an interview with Channel 8, where he said that the laws would not be changed just for one person.

Uncomfortable hard truth?

If you were to read into PM Lee's comment that Singapore will be in trouble in the next 10 to 20 years if these changes are not made, it may be interpreted that our leadership has forecast that the next three to four Presidents would be Chinese.

The apparent need for these new laws run counter to today's prevailing notion about Singapore's meritocracy, where people can overcome their differences and disadvantages in religion, race, and sexual orientation to achieve one of the highest office in the land.

Most importantly, if we agree with the changes to the EP, we accept the uncomfortable truth that, yes, we are all at least a little racist.

" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">

If we can be this realistic about racism in people, then on the issue of xenophobia... okay that's a can of worms for another day.

Top image from Lee Hsien Loong Facebook

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.