As the Aug 27 presidential election approaches, the city is gripped by political excitement that it was never designed to generate.

In the past, campaigning – if it happened at all – was a non-partisan even gentlemanly affair, but not this time.

Clearly the government doesn’t want the office turned into an arena for combative politics that could lead to a constitutional crisis.

Reason? In 1991, the purely ceremonial presidential role was transformed into an elected one with custodial powers over the use of the country’s US$116bil reserves, among the world’s highest.

Today, the elected president has veto power over government budgets and can also pardon convicted criminals and appoint key public servants.

These safeguards were aimed at preventing any future corrupt leadership from dipping into state assets after Lee Kuan Yew was no longer around. The government had never intended for it to become a platform for hot adversarial politics for fear it could lead to a messy clash of powers between the president and the Cabinet.

It nearly happened in 1993 when Sellapan Ramanathan Nathan’s predecessor, Ong Teng Cheong, criticised the government for withholding information about the city’s reserves from him, an experience the leaders would probably want to avoid.

Three prospective candidates have submitted papers to contest against Nathan, who is seeking a second term. A special committee will check their qualifications and decide on their eligibility.

Nathan, 81, is clearly the ruling People’s Action Party’s (PAP) choice but he may encounter a stiff challenge from a possible challenger, Andrew Kwan.

In the old world, a PAP endorsement would have been enough to win by a walkover, but not this time. The government and the media have come out “with guns blazing” against Kwan, showing how serious the leaders want to see Nathan win.

The challenger, a 51-year-old former chief financial officer of Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) and now a businessman, has become a rallying point for anti-government voices.

If a Kwan contest takes place, which is not very likely, it could set a future trend of politicising the presidential race. Political stability calls for a president who can work well with the government of the day.

The third applicant, a discharged bankrupt, is unlikely to make it, while the fourth, believed to be a 52-year-old former civil servant, has not shown his face.

Any presidential race has an added importance because of the timing. It will give an indication of how Singaporeans feel about the PAP with general elections around the corner.

Bread-and-butter issues are not stacking too favourably for the ruling party and for Lee Hsien Loong, who is facing his first election test since becoming Prime Minister a year ago. A good Nathan showing will augur well for them and could mean a snap election, while a very bad one could delay it.

The public had sensed the possibility of a Presidential upset; younger voters want to see a fight.

Despite the rising uncertainty of Kwan’s acceptability, heated debate is reverberating around Singapore’s chat-rooms.

“Kwan is a clown in JTC!” screams one thread.

“What has Nathan achieved in his six years?” demands another.

Some Singaporeans are none too happy about the perceived media bias. A critical writer in YoungPAP.com calls it “The destruction of Andrew Kwan”.

Waxing poetry, he adds: “We are all but like a man, standing on a riverbank, observing corpses of PAP opponents floating by on the River of History.”

The challenger got an 11th hour blow when JTC, a government statutory board, held a press conference to announce he had been asked to resign or face the sack because it was “not happy with his work”.

However, it stressed that his performance was not “poor”, nor was it aware of any wrongdoing.

The pro-government media has played up his frequent job changes, five jobs in eight years, thus questioning his desirability as president. Several ministers have pitched in for Nathan.

The government is, however, not having everything its way. The more it turns up data against Kwan, the more public sympathy goes his way. If Kwan is rejected, it could spark off public annoyance.

But his biggest advantage lies less on his credentials than on his “underdog” image among people who see him as a small “David” fighting against the powerful elite.

The high election fever also stems from years of low voter participation. Elections have generally had a high walkover rate in Singapore because the opposition was unwilling or unable to field candidates.

As a result, a new generation has grown up feeling starved of political action, wanting to experience the excitement of campaigns and voting.

Nathan supporters are also worried that he may be penalised because of race and religion. Kwan is Chinese, 30 years younger and a Christian, a strong combination for catching votes here.

PM Lee also joined the fray when he called on Kwan to “tell Singaporeans” how he came to take up so many jobs and changed them so quickly”.

The job revelations and his departure from JTC have raised doubts among heartlanders, while government critics ignore them as meaningless “propaganda”.

The bottom line is: Singaporeans are becoming an increasingly divided lot.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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