On today's ST, Law Minister mentioned the following:
"Actually, it is untrue that the president is powerless. He has extremely important roles and powers. The exercise of those powers is critically important if the government is corrupt or incompetent."
Note that if the government is indeed corrupt or incompetent, the current powers bestowed to the president will still make him handicapped in addressing it. Why?
First, if the govt wants to be corrupt, this can still happen without touching the reserves. And if the president, through his own intelligence sources, has ascertained that there is a major corruption amongst the key govt members, he can't do anything because he can't speak against the govt. What he says must be cleared by the Cabinet. His key to the Reserves isn't relevant here too.
Second, if the govt has become incompetent (e.g. by introducing extremely poor public policies), the president can also NOT speak of it in public, as what he speaks must be cleared by the Cabinet or the CPA. So there is no way for him to check on the competence of the govt.
On today's ST, Law Minister mentioned the following:
ReplyDelete"Actually, it is untrue that the president is powerless. He has extremely important roles and powers. The exercise of those powers is critically important if the government is corrupt or incompetent."
Note that if the government is indeed corrupt or incompetent, the current powers bestowed to the president will still make him handicapped in addressing it. Why?
First, if the govt wants to be corrupt, this can still happen without touching the reserves. And if the president, through his own intelligence sources, has ascertained that there is a major corruption amongst the key govt members, he can't do anything because he can't speak against the govt. What he says must be cleared by the Cabinet. His key to the Reserves isn't relevant here too.
Second, if the govt has become incompetent (e.g. by introducing extremely poor public policies), the president can also NOT speak of it in public, as what he speaks must be cleared by the Cabinet or the CPA. So there is no way for him to check on the competence of the govt.