As far as we know, four hopefuls have expressed their interest in running for the 2023 Singapore presidential election — Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Mr Ng Kok Song, Mr George Goh, and Mr Tan Kin Lian.
But just this evening (17 Aug), the Elections Department Singapore (ELD) announced that they’ve received six applications for the Certificate of Eligibility.
That means that there may be two other candidates who have yet to make their bids public.
On Thursday (17 Aug) evening, ELD revealed in a press release that a total of six applicants have registered for the Certificate of Eligibility as of 5.30pm, which was the closing of the application.
They also received 16 community declarations.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the Community Certificate allows candidates to declare which ethnic community they’re from.
It’s apparently also essential for the ELD to decide when the next reserved election will be. They will review the past five terms and see if a certain community hasn’t had a representative elected to office.
Should such a case exist, ELD will reserve the next presidential election for that community.
Most of us who’ve been following the news would know of the candidates who’ve announced their presidential bids. In case you’ve forgotten, they are:
Other than them, the only other rumoured hopeful was a man who claimed to be a former teacher and President of Singapore in 1951.
He collected the application forms on 13 June, the same day as Mr George Goh.
However, ELD didn’t specify who the two remaining hopefuls are, so their identities remain unknown.
The next deadline will be tomorrow (18 Aug), by which applications for a political donation certificate will cease.
Thereafter, presidential hopefuls will find out from the Presidential Elections Committee whether they qualify as candidates for the election.
The public will then receive this information on Nomination Day on 22 Aug.
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Featured image by MS News. Photography by Iskandar Rossali.
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