Today, we have a broad conversation on PE2023 with veteran journalist Bertha Henson. She reflects on Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s landslide win, shares how she got involved in Mr. George Goh’s campaign, and discusses and evaluates the office of the elected presidency in Singapore. In particular, we highlight two bodies: the Presidential Elections Committee, or the PEC, as well as the Council of Presidential Advisors, or the CPA.
What are the experiences of Singaporean academics who have spent time abroad, before returning home and working to reintegrate, both as academics, and as Singapore citizens. Together with her collaborators, in the article – “International academic or citizen scholar?: Singaporean returnees in the global city” (which we’ll link in the show notes) – lead author Yasmin Ortiga focused on this notion of reintegration as well as the conflicting demands associated with it. Like many others, I enjoyed reading the article, and the conversation I had with her, as you’ll hear, was a delight.
In 2023, as part of the “Civic Engagement and Action” series of the podcast’s sixth season, we published five episodes focused on the 2023 Singaporean presidential election. Here are the episodes.
This roundup summarises the most important news stories around the world in the last month (August 2023).
Like the entire PE2023 campaign thus far, the presidential forum offered little beyond scripted platitudes and vague generalities. Be that as it may, Isaac Neo and I sat down after the forum to chat about our general impressions, and how the limits of the forum modality perhaps reflected the limits and ambiguities associated with Singapore’s elected presidency.
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