<Facebook post by Goh Meng Seng>
Open Letter to Halimah
Dear Madam Halimah,
At this very moment when I pen this letter to you, I still have the opportunity to address you as Madam Halimah instead of Madam Kelong President Halimah and I hope NOT to have that unfortunate opportunity to address you as such.
There is absolutely No Glory nor Dignity for you to become our First Lady President under the current circumstances. Your eventual “acceptance” of such farce arrangement of “Reserved Presidency”, apparently meant for you, by submitting your nomination papers tomorrow, will be seen as an dishonorable act which will undermine the Presidency even before you begin your tour of duty.
Most important of all, your nomination and eventual acceptance of this Presidency now will cause more hurt and damage to the very Malay community which you claim to represent and lead. The implicit humiliation and hurt suffered by the Malay community will never recover fully due to the disgraceful ways of political manipulation by the power that creates unfavorable inferences upon the Malay community throughout the process.
You have said that you want to be the unifying figure for ALL Singaporeans but ironically, if you accept the “reserved appointment” of Presidency under such circumstances, you will not gain any substantial respect from any Singaporeans from any race. Your role of unification of Singaporeans would ironically be a figure head that every Singaporean stand in unity to disrespect or even despised!
The damage to our foundation of Core Values based on Meritocracy is just too great to quantify. This is one of the biggest damage your acceptance of such reserved appointment would do to our nation.
I would urge you to reconsider on submitting your nomination papers on 13 Sep 2017 because such move would only bring damaging consequences to everyone, to the whole Nation because it would be seen as the ultimate sophistry of rigging a simple electoral progress that would bring shame and disgrace to our Nation. A President-to-be who would put the whole Nation to shame and anger, is definitely not a good start for your six-years term which would be void of any legitimacy in the eyes of Singaporeans and the whole world at large.
I would urge you NOT to submit your nomination papers tomorrow so to trigger the mechanism to open up the Presidential Elections to contest by ALL qualified individuals from all races. Then you should contest in a fair and open elections to exemplify the values of meritocracy we hold so dearly for the success of this Nation.
Respect, dignity and legitimacy are earned, not Reserved in appointment. You will do yourself no justice as well as harm and damage to your Malay community as well as the Nation at large if you do not really understand this simple value.
Regrettably,
Goh Meng Seng