Ong Teng Cheong
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| Ong Teng Cheong 王鼎昌 |
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| In office August 28, 1993 – September 1, 1999 |
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| Prime Minister | Goh Chok Tong (1990-2004) |
| Preceded by | Wee Kim Wee |
| Succeeded by | Sellapan Ramanathan |
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| Born | January 22, 1936 Singapore |
| Died | February 8, 2002 (aged 66) Singapore |
| Nationality | Singaporean |
| Political party | People's Action Party |
| Spouse | Ling Siew May (died 1999) |
| Profession | Architect |
| Religion | Buddhism |
- This is a Chinese name; the family name is Ong.
Ong Teng Cheong, GCMG (Chinese: 王鼎昌; pinyin: Wáng Dǐngchāng; January 22, 1936 - February 8, 2002) was the first directly elected President of Republic of Singapore. He was the nation's fifth President, in office from August 28, 1993 to September 1, 1999.
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[edit] Life
He studied in Chung Cheng Primary School and The Chinese High School (1950-1955), and is arguably the school's most famous alumnus.
[edit] Politics
As chairman of the People's Action Party (PAP) and secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress, Ong was considered a firm Lee Kuan Yew loyalist. In January 1986, he sanctioned a strike in the shipping industry, the first for about a decade in Singapore, without telling the cabinet. He said that he did not inform the cabinet or the government because they would probably stop him from going ahead with the strike. There was a major corporate and Cabinet backlash against his decision; however, the strike lasted only two days, and a deal was struck.[1]
During his tenure as the Minister of National Development, Ong was a proponent of the Mass Rapid Transit system. He later became the 2nd Deputy Prime Minister in 1985.
[edit] Presidency
Ong ran for the presidency in 1993 under PAP's endorsement. He ran against a reluctant Chua Kim Yeoh, a former accountant general, for the post. A total of 1,756,517 votes were polled. Ong received 952,513 votes while Chua had 670,358 votes, despite the former having a higher public exposure and a much more active campaign than Chua. There was a swing of support over to Chua's side, especially in the educated class. The reason was because of the issue of whether they wanted a PAP man as president to check on a PAP government or whether it would be better to have a neutral independent like Chua.[citation needed]
However, soon after his election to the presidency in 1993, he became embroiled in a dispute with the government over the access of information regarding Singapore's financial reserves. The government said it would take 56 man years to produce a dollar-and-cents value of the immovable assets. Ong discussed this with the accountant general and the auditor general and came to a compromise that the government needed to give him only a listing of all the properties that the government owns. It took the government a few months to produce the list. But even then the list was not complete. In all, it took the government three years to come up with the information about the reserves that Ong requested.[1] The government also tried to submit a bill to parliament for the sale of the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB), a statutory board whose reserves are to be protected by the president, to the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), without first informing Ong during the last year of his presidency. Ong's office had to inform the government that the procedure was wrong.[1]
Due to health reasons, he decided not to run for a second term as president in 1999.
[edit] Death
Ong Teng Cheong's wife, Ling Siew May, died in August 1999 after a cancer relapse. Ong Teng Cheong died on February 8, 2002, at the age of 66 from lymphoma in his home at about 8:14 pm SST after he had been discharged from hospital a few days earlier.
Among the four former presidents who had passed away, Ong Teng Cheong was the only one who did not receive a state funeral.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c 'I Had a Job to Do' Whether the government liked it or not, says ex-president Ong, Asiaweek, 26 9, 10 Mar 2006.
- ^ The mess that is our Presidency. Yawning Bread. Retrieved on 2008-02-18.
[edit] External links
- Ong Teng Cheong - In Memory of Singapore's first Elected President, Mr. Ong Teng Cheong (1936 - 2002)
- In Memoriam of Ong Teng Cheong - ChannelNewsAsia
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by S Rajaratnam |
Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore 1985-1993 |
Succeeded by Lee Hsien Loong |
| Preceded by Wee Kim Wee |
President of Singapore 1993-1999 |
Succeeded by Sellapan Ramanathan |
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Presidents of Singapore |
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Yusof bin Ishak | Benjamin Henry Sheares | C.V. Devan Nair | Wee Kim Wee | Ong Teng Cheong | S.R. Nathan |
