Ong Teng Cheong
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| Ong Teng Cheong | |
 Copyright:Presidential Photo | |
| | |
| In office August 28 1993 – September 1 1999 | |
| Deputy | Prime Minister of Singapore: Goh Chok Tong (1990–2004) |
|---|---|
| Preceded by | Wee Kim Wee |
| Succeeded by | Sellapan Ramanathan |
| | |
| Born | January 22, 1936 Singapore |
| Died | February 8, 2002 Singapore |
| Political party | People's Action Party |
| Spouse | Ling Siew May |
| Profession | Architect |
- This is a Chinese name; the family name is Ong
Ong Teng Cheong (Chinese: 王鼎昌; pinyin: Wáng Dǐngchāng; January 22, 1936 - February 8, 2002) was the first directly elected President of Republic of Singapore. He studied in Chung Cheng Primary School and The Chinese High School (1950-1955), and is arguably the school's most famous alumni.
As chairman of the People's Action Party 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 only lasted two days, and a deal was struck.<ref name=asiaweek>'I Had a Job to Do' Whether the government liked it or not, says ex-president Ong, Asiaweek, 26 9, 10 Mar 2006.</ref>
During his tenure in the Ministry of National Development, Ong was a champion of the Mass Rapid Transit system. He later became the 2nd Deputy Prime Minister in 1985.
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 President 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 only need to give him 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.<ref name=asiaweek/> The government also tried to submit a bill to parliament for the sale of Post Office Savings Bank (POSB), a statutory board whose reserves are to be protected by the president, to 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.<ref name=asiaweek/>
He later decided not to run for a second term as president in 1999.
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 8:14pm SST after he had been discharged from hospital a few days earlier.
[edit] References
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[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
| 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 |
| Image:President of Singapore Flag.svg | Presidents of Singapore |
|
Yusof bin Ishak | Benjamin Henry Sheares | Chengara Veetil Devan Nair | Wee Kim Wee | Ong Teng Cheong | Sellapan Ramanathan |
