Perpetual presidential hopeful Tan Cheng Bock has filed an appeal on Wednesday, July 12, against a High Court decision to dismiss his legal challenge on the upcoming presidential election reserved for Malay candidates.

Tan wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday night saying his lawyers have been given the go-ahead:

After studying the reasons given by the Court and reading the official Court transcripts, my lawyers have advised that the Judge may have misconstrued the relevant Constitutional provisions.

Wednesday was the last day for Tan to file an appeal.

The appeal, which has been expedited to be heard swiftly in court, is likely to occur during the week of July 25.

In short, Tan has been contending that the reserved election should start only in 2023 at the earliest, and not in 2017.

Last Friday, Justice Quentin Loh ruled that Parliament was entitled to decide the timing of a reserved election.

This was so as the constitution of Singapore does not restrict Parliament to consider only presidents elected by citizens when deciding the timing of an election.

Any president appointed by Parliament can also be counted.

Justice Loh also ruled that Parliament had intended for the count to start from President Wee Kim Wee's term in passing the law on the reserved election.

This ruling has maintained the status quo that only Malay candidates are eligible to stand in the next presidential election due in September this year.

And if Tan's appeal gets turned down, he would have exhausted all avenues to change the course of the upcoming presidential election.

So far, Tan has said he was disappointed with a lot of things.

These include the court’s decision to dismiss his legal challenge, as well as with the Attorney-General hitting him below the belt with unwarranted comments suggesting he was “selfish”, and the mainstream media’s coverage of his case, which highlighted the racial element of his challenge against the upcoming Presidential Election being a reserved one for Malay candidates only.

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