The writ of election for the coming presidential poll — if there will be one — was issued on Monday afternoon, and we now wait to see if there will be more than one qualified person to be nominated as a candidate to run on September 13.

Promptly, the very next morning, Prime-Minister-Lee-Hsien-Loong-endorsed high-probability presidential hopeful Halimah Yacob organised a press conference to unveil her campaign slogan and high-powered team of campaigners, election agents and nominators.

As usual, here are 5 things we observed:

1. The NTUC machinery, out in force

Halimah's press conference was held in a room on Level 10 of One Marina Boulevard, the behemoth of a building smack in the Central Business District belonging to the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).

The room boasted an impressive backdrop with community photos of Halimah that came with its own lighting, as well as separate lights, and folks wearing NTUC lanyards were helping with the event too — dotting the perimeter of the room, giving out press kits, complete with thumb drives, and also emceeing and introducing Halimah and her campaign team.

But perhaps the biggest signal of NTUC's support for Halimah would have to be the presence of NTUC president Mary Liew (on the left in the photo above).

She is one of two unionists on her election team (the other being veteran trade unionist G Muthu Kumarasamy), and is also one of her three nominators whom she introduced on Tuesday morning.

Now, this is fair, we suppose — Halimah devoted her entire professional career (before stepping up as Minister of State) to the union, and spent a full three decades at NTUC, rising to the rank of Deputy Secretary-General.

She also highlighted the strong backing she will have in her campaign, courtesy of the unions, on the evening she announced she was going to stand for the presidency.

All this triggered a question from The Straits Times's Elgin Toh: was the NTUC making special arrangements to support Halimah in her bid for the presidency?

And as an extension, have they been doing this for other elections previously?

In response, Liew said:

"I'm not sure whether you were there at the NTUC National Day observance ceremony — if you would have been there you would have seen the overwhelming enthusiasm of our working people, of our workers there, and they can't wait to support Mdm Halimah definitely.

They can't wait, and they were in fact asking when will the day come, and of course they didn't know until yesterday. And the thing is that moving forward, yes they were asking, and they will definitely take their time off, and they need to take leave — even for myself, I have applied for leave, and we will definitely be there for Mdm Halimah."

Toh sought clarification, but her follow-up answers were sketchier: they would "sacrifice whatever that needs to make", "we will go all the way out to support them" and "I can definitely say that we support Sister Halimah".

Taking leave and time off? Sounds like NTUC is making some special arrangements to support Halimah then.

2. Halimah's campaign is a referendum on NTUC's mobilising ability

Certainly, it's been said that when one has the backing of Singapore's trade unions in an election, the battle is more than half won.

And it's undeniable that Halimah has the backing of hundreds of thousands of its members.

But that said, this is something that's definitely worth watching — especially bearing in mind two key issues:

a) Can the Labour MPs help the cause?

At the moment, these include Desmond Choo, Melvin Yong, Ang Hin Kee, Zainal Sapari, Heng Chee How and Patrick Tay. How effective would they be in helping Halimah to rally the unions behind her, considering many of them aren't well known?

Compare these folks to NTUC founder and first secretary-general Devan Nair, who brought together more than 60 per cent of Singapore's fragmented trade unions under his pragmatic leadership at the NTUC, and also, at the same time, stood by himself for the 1979 parliamentary election in Anson constituency and won.

Devan's charisma was certainly a universal mobiliser, and it remains to be seen if the current generation of NTUC leaders — including, of course, its secretary-general Chan Chun Sing — can win hearts and minds for Halimah the way Devan and the old guard did decades ago.

b) The last time NTUC backed a union candidate

The last elected President who was a unionist is the first elected President: the late Ong Teng Cheong.

Backed by the NTUC at the time, the former NTUC Sec-Gen garnered only 58.69 per cent of the popular vote in 1993 against former Accountant-General Chua Kim Yeow, who made clear he did not want people to vote or campaign for him. He even went as far as to declare Ong the superior candidate on polling day.

Yet, Chua garnered 41.31 per cent of the vote — surely a margin that was slightly too small to be comfortable for Ong and the NTUC.

So will this mobilising effort by NTUC work in the event of an election? We'll have to wait and see.

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3. That ungrammatical slogan...

We couldn't help but point this out. Why ah — didn't anyone realise the missing word between "do" and "together"?

Halimah explains her slogan as being for Singaporeans "to come together as one and do what is good for the community and country", and doing so "regardless of race, language or religion".

And that's great, but grammar nazis will inevitably notice the awkwardness of the slogan, which likely cut out the "it", or whatever else might work between "do" and "together", so it would flow better from "Do good".

We suspect even Halimah realised the grammar boo-boo, as on at least a couple of occasions during the press conference, she said "do good, do it together".

But it's too late — it's all over her site, backdrop and it'll stick. Guess it can be argued that it's more accessible?

4. The completely-representative make-up of Halimah's election team

Check out this picture of Halimah's election team. Here's a rundown of its make up:

• 3 former Nominated Members of Parliament (Mary Liew, Lawrence Leow, Simon Tay), and one current one (Chia Yong Yong)
• 4 men, and 2 women
• 4 Chinese, 1 Malay and 1 Indian
• Of the 6, Chia Yong Yong also represents Singaporeans with physical disabilities
• 2 grassroots leaders who serve in Marsiling, Halimah's previous ward (Sheng Siong CEO Lim Hock Chee, and Lawrence Leow)
• 2 unionists (Mary Liew and G Muthu Kumarasamy)

It's an impressive spread, and simply shows how Halimah, in her life of public service, has really won the admiration and respect of people from every area she worked in.

It also reflects the many different areas Halimah advocated as an MP. Chia gave a passionate but short speech in support of her:

"To me Madam is someone who has a heart at the municipal level, perspectives at the international level and motivation at the national level.

I know she will make us proud as our president and I know she will be our face to the world, to tell the world what an inclusive society we have, what a meritocratic society we have, what a fair community we have. And I am here to support her."

Whichever way you slice it, it's one heck of a team she's got backing her.

5. Is her candidacy for the future, or the past?

But at the same time, should Halimah's potential-future presidency be for people who are, well — all around her age group?

The six high-profile supporters who appeared at the press conference were of ages ranging from 54 to 66.

In contrast, the rising stars featured on the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) video "There's no place like this" are as young as in their teens. Teochew opera artist Tan Wei Tian is 13. Indoor skydiver Kyra Poh is 14. Among the slightly older people, ShiGGa Shay turns 25 next month, Nathan Hartono is 26, and even Stefanie Sun is 39.

All of these folks are still younger than the youngest person on Halimah's team. One can't help but wonder, therefore, if the former Madam Speaker and the possible future Madam President is in touch with our young Singaporeans.

They do, after all, form the future of Singapore's economy.

Even talking union-wise, the young generation of Singaporean workers are freelancers, people in the disruptive sharing economy, Smart Nation entrepreneurs — and it's worth thinking about whether Halimah as a president is well-placed to represent and relate to these folks.

 

Now, don't get us wrong. No one disputes Halimah's suitability for the presidency, and also qualification — there are few better candidates than her, of course — and in all likelihood, Halimah will be a president for all races, all religions and all social strata too.

But will she be a president for all ages?

Top photo by Jeanette Tan