Ong Teng Cheong

Ong Teng Cheong (王鼎昌, Wáng Dǐngchāng) (January 22, 1936 - February 8, 2002) was the first elected President of Republic of Singapore. He studied in The Chinese High School, and is arguably the school's most famous alumni.

Related Topics:
January 22 - 1936 - February 8 - 2002 - President - Republic of Singapore - The Chinese High School

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Ong was 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, the first for about a decade in Singapore, without telling the cabinet. He said that he didn't inform the cabinet or the government because they would probably stop him from going ahead with the strike. The strike only lasted two days, then all the issues were settled. It showed that management was just trying to pull a fast one. Hence Mr Ong believed that he did the right thing.

Related Topics:
People's Action Party - National Trades Union Congress - Lee Kuan Yew - Singapore

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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.

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Mr Ong ran for the presidency in 1993 under PAP's endorsement. He ran against a relucant Mr 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 having a higher public exposure and campaigned much more actively 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.

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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. Mr 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 Mr Ong requested. The government also tried to submit a bill to parliament for this sale and to dissolve the POSB, a statutory board whose reserves are to be protected by the president, without first informing Mr Ong during the last year of his presidency. Mr Ong's office had to inform the government that the procedure was wrong.

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He later decided not to run for a second term as president in 1999.

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Ong Teng Cheong's wife, Ling Siew May, died in August 1999 after a cancer relapse. Mr Ong Teng Cheong passed away 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 for a few days ago.

Related Topics:
February 8 - 2002 - Lymphoma - SST

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