ELECTORS have given the Government the president it wanted in the country's first poll for a head of state, but also delivered a strong dissenting vote.
As expected, Ong Teng Cheong, 57, who resigned as deputy prime minister and chairman of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) to run for president, was the victor in Saturday's election. But his opponent, Chua Kim Yeow, 67, a little-known former accountant-general and banker, who did not campaign actively, received a surprisingly high 41.3 per cent of the votes cast.
Mr Ong's 58.7 per cent was less than the 61 per cent won by the PAP in the last parliamentary elections in 1991, a result that visibly depressed the Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, at the time, since it represented a two per cent fall in PAP support compared with the previous poll in 1988.
However, not all seats were contested in those parliamentary elections.
The first election of a president in Singapore, in which 1.6 million people, or nearly 95 per cent of registered voters, cast their ballots, was also the first time in two decades that the entire electorate had a chance to express a collective opinion.
Accordingly, the Government can be expected to analyse the result to determine why an unfamiliar, retired civil servant, who was a contestant only because a minister in the present cabinet and one from a past cabinet convinced him there was a need for an alternative candidate, did so well without really trying.
The opposition is claiming some of the credit for Mr Chua's impressive showing, having called on Singaporeans not to vote for Mr Ong after their two nominees were barred from the race.