Perpetual presidential hopeful Tan Cheng Bock bows out gracefully

He reluctantly accepts he cannot contest this presidential election.

Belmont Lay | August 23, 2017, 06:32 PM

Perpetual presidential hopeful Tan Cheng Bock has thrown in the towel and called it a day as he has given up hope to be Singapore's next president this 2017.

This was after the Court of Appeal dismissed Tan’s appeal on Wednesday, Aug. 23, effectively exhausting all avenues for him to make another bid for the presidency.

Tan had filed an appeal on July 12 against a High Court decision to dismiss his legal challenge on the upcoming presidential election reserved for Malay candidates.

Heavy heart

In a Facebook post on Aug. 23, Tan said he accepts the court's outcome reluctantly: "Now that the Court of Appeal has had the final say, I accept the verdict - but with a heavy heart."

For the past six years, Tan has held out hope that he could run again in 2017 for the presidential election.

He had lost narrowly by 0.34 percent in PE2011 to Tony Tan.

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Reason for court application

In his post, Tan also explained why he felt compelled to file a court application.

He said he wanted the government to state categorically why they chose to start the count of five presidential terms with President Wee Kim Wee, resulting in 2017 being a reserved election year.

This question of how presidencies are counted was previously put before parliament by Workers' Party MP Sylvia Lim, who was then asked to bring her challenge to court instead to receive an answer.

So, he took it up on her behalf and said it was the proper way to do things and to account to Singaporeans.

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