Ong Teng Cheong 王鼎昌
Official portrait of Ong Teng Cheong taken in 1993
5th President of Singapore
In office 2 September 1993 – 1 September 1999
Prime Minister	Goh Chok Tong
Preceded by	Wee Kim Wee
Succeeded by	S.R. Nathan
Born	22 January 1936(1936-01-22) Singapore
Died	8 February 2002 (aged 66) Singapore
Nationality	Singaporean
Political party	Independent(1993-2002) People's Action Party (1972–1993)
Spouse(s)	Ling Siew May (died 1999)
Profession	Architect
Religion	Buddhism

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Ong (Chinese: 王; pinyin: Wáng).

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (August 2009)

Ong Teng Cheong, Honorary GCMG (Chinese: 王鼎昌; pinyin: Wáng Dǐngchāng; POJ: Ông Tíng-chhiong; 22 January 1936 - 8 February 2002) was the first directly elected President of Republic of Singapore. He was the nation's fifth President, in office from 2 September 1993 to 1 September 1999.

[edit] Early life

Born in 1936 as the eldest son, Ong was the second of five children from a middle class family. His English-educated father felt that Chinese is important if one wants to make a success in life, and especially business, so he sent all his children to Chinese medium schools. Ong graduated with distinctions from the Chinese High School (1950-1955), but being Chinese-educated, he saw little opportunity for advancing his studies in the Malayan University, where English was the teaching medium. In 1956, with the help of his father's friends, Ong ventured abroad. Those years were to shape both his beliefs and passions. He studied architecture at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and was later joined by his childhood sweetheart Ling Siew May. They had met in secondary school, when she was studying in Nanyang Girls'. After graduation, Ong worked as an architect in Adelaide and married Siew May in 1963.^[1]

[edit] Political career

Ong Teng Cheong's political career spanned 21 years. He was Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, before he resigned to become Elected President in 1993. Ong was talent spotted by the People's Action Party which fielded him in Kim Keat in the 1972 General Election. His first political appointment came just 3 years later when he was made Senior Minister of State for Communications. And it was as Communications Minister that Ong pushed for the development of the MRT system, the largest construction project in Singapore's history. His next challenge came on the labour front, when he became NTUC Secretary-General in 1983. Ong was diagnosed with lymphoma-cancer of the lymphatic system in 1992. But this did not dampen his desire to continue serving. He became Singapore's first Elected President a year later, and it was a presidency marked by many charitable projects, which touched the lives of many Singaporeans. Ong stepped down as President at the age of 63. ^[1]

As chairman of the People's Action Party (PAP) 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 in the shipping industry, the first for about a decade in Singapore, without telling the cabinet. He said that he did not inform the cabinet or the government because they would probably stop him from going ahead with the strike. There was a major corporate and Cabinet backlash against his decision; however, the strike lasted only two days, and a deal was struck.^[2]

Ong (in beige suit) opens the initial section of the MRT at Toa Payoh Station in 1987.

During his tenure as the Minister of National Development, Ong was a proponent of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. He later became the 2nd Deputy Prime Minister in 1985.

[edit] Presidency

Ong ran for the presidency in 1993 under PAP's endorsement. He ran against a reluctant Chua Kim Yeow, 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 the former having a higher public exposure and a much more active campaign 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.^{[citation needed]}

However, soon after his election to the presidency 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. Ong discussed this with the accountant general and the auditor general and came to a compromise that the government needed to give him only 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 Ong requested.^[2] The government also tried to submit a bill to parliament for the sale of the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB), a statutory board whose reserves are to be protected by the president, to the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), without first informing Ong during the last year of his presidency. Ong's office had to inform the government that the procedure was wrong.^[2]

Due to health reasons, he decided not to run for a second term as president in 1999.

[edit] Death

Ong Teng Cheong's wife, Ling Siew May, died in August 1999 after a cancer relapse. Ong Teng Cheong died on February 8, 2002, at the age of 66 from lymphoma in his home at about 8:14 pm SST after he had been discharged from hospital a few days earlier.

Among the four former presidents who had passed away, Ong Teng Cheong was the only one who did not receive a state funeral.^[3]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Ong Teng Cheong - In Memory of Singapore's first Elected President, Mr. Ong Teng Cheong (1936 - 2002)
• In Memoriam of Ong Teng Cheong - ChannelNewsAsia

v • d • e Presidents of Singapore Yusof bin Ishak · Benjamin Henry Sheares · C.V. Devan Nair · Wee Kim Wee · Ong Teng Cheong · S.R. Nathan