It's not a stretch to say that the recent Presidential selection election has been rather controversial.

On Sep. 16, Singaporeans even turned out in their hundreds at Hong Lim Park to wage a silent protest and also for a chance to meet onetime Presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock.

But if you ask Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, he welcomes the debate over the reserved Presidency, and even says that it's an "encouraging" sign.

"Even in the debate over the presidency, there is something encouraging in it. There is clearly an aspiration for race to matter less. I think race does matter today, everything else being equal, but it is good that people have this aspiration."

Tharman was speaking at the inaugural Majulah Lecture at Nanyang Technological University on Sep. 20. Former PAP MP, Ambassador Zainul Abidin Rasheed had asked a question on the divisiveness in society caused by the reserved Presidential election.

While Tharman said that he believed Singapore was at a better starting point than in other countries, with a more cohesive society that is far more tolerant than most, he cautioned against being complacent lest divisions within society deepened.

"It requires continuous work, and should never pretend that just leaving it to the market would lead to more understanding, more harmony, greater multiculturalism. It doesn’t happen that way anywhere in the world. It requires conscious action, conscious acts of the State, which work if they are supported by people. "

Society growing more open - slowly

Tharman also noted that the existence of the debate and the strong response online and elsewhere was also an indication that Singaporean society had gotten more open, and was more willing to consider alternate points of view.

He recounted his own experience, having grown up in the 60s and "active in his own way" as a politically conscious and aware young man in the 70s before joining the PAP in 2001.

"Singapore has really changed...it is a vastly more open and liberal place compared to what it used to be. Believe me. I was an activist. Vastly more liberal and vastly more open. And the sense of fear, the sense of constraints, is far less now."

Tharman also mentioned his disagreement with some of the tactics used by the PAP during election campaigns:

"It doesn’t mean I agree with every tactic by every one of my colleagues, but I have to say that if there is something that defines the PAP, it is its insistence on character, honesty, and being true to Singaporeans."

He added that Singaporeans were not fools and did not read media reports and the news blindly. The fact that Singaporeans were talking more openly and making judgments, often on social media can attest to how open our society is.

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The pledge must mean something

Another audience member also said that he grew up reciting the pledge every day in school, but the reserved Presidential election had left him questioning the validity of the line "regardless of race, language or religion."

However, Tharman had a characteristically robust response for this - and also about the nature of Halimah Yacob's walkover:

"It is understandable that questions are raised on the reserved election. It is also understandable that most people, including myself and I’m sure most people here, would have preferred a contest.

But the aspiration for race not to count is something that needs working towards. It cannot just be a pledge, it cannot be just an incantation. It requires working towards. And if along the way you see decades after decades, that you don’t have a Malay president, I think that what we say loses its meaning."

Tharman said that a conscious act of the state was required in this instance, with Parliament amending the Constitution after consultations and a Constitutional Commission.

But he repeated that he took it as an encouraging sign that people wanted race to matter less in the future, because it shows that Singaporeans "value" what we say in our pledge.

"As Madam Halimah put it, she looks forward, like we all do, to the day where it will not matter. But we have to work towards it. It doesn’t happen on its own."

Leave it to none other than our cerebral Deputy Prime Minister to provide a unique take on the furore over the reserved Presidential election.

Top image courtesy of NTU.

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