Veteran wins tight Singapore presidential race

Veteran politician and banker Tony Tan was declared the winner of Singapore's presidential election Sunday after a recount gave him a razor-thin victory that exposed sharp divisions in the electorate. The 71-year-old former deputy prime minister, seen a proxy for the ruling party, won by just 7,269 votes over his closest challenger out of 2.1 million valid votes cast in Saturday's four-way race to become head of state. Tan got 744,397 votes, or 35 percent of the total, well below the 60 percent garnered by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) in general elections held in May that marked the lowest point in its popularity after 52 years in power. "The president is a president for all Singaporeans, not only for those who have voted for me but even for those who have not voted for me. I pledge to work for each and everyone of you," he said after his victory was announced. "It has been a strenuous campaign, it's over now, the real work begins straight away." The Elections Department ordered the recount of all votes cast after the first tally showed the two frontrunners were less than two percent apart. Presidential candidates run as individuals in keeping with the non-partisan nature of the job, but Tony Tan was widely associated with the PAP after he quit the party only in June to run for president. His closest rival was a political maverick, physician Tan Cheng Bock, who courted the opposition vote and called for a clear separation between the president and the government despite being a former PAP member himself. The presidential post has veto powers over key government appointments and safeguards Singapore's foreign reserves, which now total around $250 billion. The former British colony has a Westminster-style parliamentary system and became a republic in 1965. Until Saturday's vote, there was limited political interest in the post, which was widely seen as a ceremonial job. But emotions were still running high three-and-a-half months after the May general election, especially in online forums that now set the tone for the national political debate with mainstream media perceived to be pro-PAP. Tony Tan, his family and the PAP came under scathing attack in social media during the nine-day presidential campaign. He served for 27 years in parliament and ran five cabinet ministries before moving on to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), which invests Singapore's foreign reserves. The closely fought race exposed a vastly torn electorate, said Murray Hiebert, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies' Southeast Asia programme. "I think it shows Singaporeans pretty evenly divided between those who wanted to support the candidate most closely identified with the PAP and give the government a vote of confidence, and those who wanted a more independent president," he told AFP. Tan Cheng Bock, 71, the runner-up, said before the election that the president "must not be a proxy of any political party." "His interest must be national, not with a political agenda in mind." Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong overhauled his cabinet after the May parliamentary polls, which he called a "watershed" in Singapore politics. Lee's predecessors -- his own father Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong -- retired as cabinet advisers as part of the reshuffle. The soaring cost of living, lack of affordable public housing, competition for jobs from foreign workers and overcrowded public transport services were among the gripes aired by Singaporeans in the run-up to the May polls. The presidential campaign was dominated by calls for an independent head of state to serve as a check on the PAP, which steered Singapore to prosperity but now finds itself on the defensive. Bridget Welsh, a political science professor at the Singapore Management University, said Singaporeans "are tired of elitism" and that Tony Tan was seen as a representative of the political elite.