Search results
Ong Teng Cheong was a Singaporean statesman, architect and union leader who served as the fifth president of Singapore from 1993 to 1999. He was the first president to be directly elected in a popular vote and the main advocate behind the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system.
Feb 8, 2002 · Learn about the life and achievements of Ong Teng Cheong, the fifth president of Singapore and the first to be elected into office. He was also an architect, a politician, a union leader and a patron of arts and sports.
Learn about the life and legacy of Ong Teng Cheong, who served as the fifth president of Singapore from 1993 to 1999. He was a labour leader, a deputy prime minister, a constitutional defender and a cultural advocate.
Feb 8, 2002 · Ong Teng Cheong was the fifth president of Singapore, who served from 1993 to 1999. He was elected with a record 58.7 percent of votes and challenged the government on constitutional and financial issues.
- Status Has Solidified
- Connected with People
- Illustrious Career
- Sanctioned A Strike
- As President of Singapore
- Public Dispute with The Government
However, events in the past year in the lead-up to the 2017 reserved presidential election has made Ong's status as the people's president more pronounced than ever. This is especially so since there is greater clarity now that Ong is officially not Singapore's first elected president, even though he was the first to win at the polls. This technica...
Ong was involved in grassroots activities in his early 30s in the late 1960s when he was staying in Seletar Hills. He was an architect by training. It was Ong’s commitment, mannerisms and intelligence that got him noticed by the People's Action Party. Then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once remarked that Ong “had shown a special knack, the ability to...
Prior to being fielded in the 1972 election, Ong worked with the Ministry of National Development as a town planner from 1967 to 1971. From 1972 to 1991, Ong served as a People’s Action Party (PAP) MP for the Kim Keat constituency. His first political appointment came barely three years after being elected, when he was made Senior Minister of State...
Ong’s affable qualities were further refined as he spent more than 20 years in the public service and labour movement, before becoming president. As a union activist in NTUC, Ong was ferocious in working actively and forcefully in the interests of the unions in a way that his predecessor had never been seen to do, and stretched union activism to th...
As the fifth president of Singapore, Ong served a six-year term from Sept. 1, 1993 to Aug. 31, 1999. It was in office that the legacy of Ong’s presidency took shape. In 1994, he questioned the government’s interpretation of the constitution when the latter introduced a bill to revise the veto powers of the president. He then asked for the matter to...
Ong also took his role as the guardian of Singapore’s reserves seriously by questioning the type and quantity of assets the government owned. This episode played out as a public dispute between him and the government over the access of information regarding Singapore’s financial reserves. Ong’s stand was that he could not carry out his duties if he...
Jul 1, 2021 · SINGAPORE - Two sons of former Singapore president Ong Teng Cheong are facing off in court in a dispute over shareholdings in the holding company that controls the architecture business founded...
Feb 8, 2014 · Interview of Singapore’s first elected president, Ong Teng Cheong, by Asiaweek. It’s now six months since you stepped down. How do you feel about your time as president? I am satisfied with what I did. I hope it was all for the best. I was elected to do a job. And I had to do that job whether the government — or anyone else — liked it or not.
