If you were a member of the Constitutional Commission, to review the Elected Presidency, do you think you would review it the same way again.
I was a member. - I know, so you are complicit right?
But would you do it again, the same way?
If you read the report of the Constitutional Commission, there is a provision where we said, of course, we can move away from the Elected Presidency and go towards Parliament appointee, as we did in the past.
That was one way and you can ensure that you will always have a rotation and ethnic groups will be given fair representation and each will have its turn.
I want to declare and add that it has always been my view that the presidency of Singapore should in fact rotate,
and different ethnic groups must have an opportunity to occupy that seat.
Because, the presidency of the country is a symbol of the country and it must unify the country,
and it must represent what the country looks like in terms of its demography and ethnicity.
So I'm for any mechanism that allows for better representation and ensuring the representation of every community.
So that is what I would say. Would I have done the same? It's never good policy to answer questions - would I have done the same thing in the past.
So I don't want to answer that. Would I have acted in the same way before - it's not like would you have married the same person.
I don't think that kind of question is very useful. But I would say if you look at the Constitutional Commission report, did add the proviso that there is another way of doing it too.
But we have now the Elected Presidency, as the Constitutional Commission did recommend and it was adopted.
One should never change constitutions and constitutional provisions too often or political electoral arrangements too often.
Gerrymandering is what every country does but you cannot do it too blatantly. I think that has to be changed.
But most countries do some gerrymandering.
But to change the GRC system now and make it all SMCs, you are chopping and changing too fast.
I think there is some merit to GRCs because it was introduced to ensure that there is minority representation. And it does.
And certainly it has helped the opposition win a slate of candidates - five at one go. It will help the opposition too.
It not only just helps the governing party, it helps the opposition. Five seats in Aljunied, five seats in Sengkang.
Otherwise you've got to go slowly, one-one-one-one. That is a much harder exercise.
I don't feel strongly about whether we keep GRCs or not,
I thought the reason that we have GRCs is so that we can ensure minority representation -
was a good one for me when it was introduced and I don't see the reason to take it away.