In July 1985, lawyer and opposition politician Harbans Singh made an extraordinary proposal: Singapore's Head of State should be a sultan instead of a president. At that tine, Wee Kim Wee was the president.
During a press conference, Harbans Singh said that instead of wasting tine to look for a president every four years, parliament should just select a sultan. Not just another sultan, but a descendant of Sultan Hussain Mohamed Shah. Readers who are familiar with the history of Singapore's founding will remember that it was Sultan Hussain who made a deal with Stamford Raffles so that the British could acquire Singapore as a trading port. There was a colonial-era deal to provide allowances to the descendants of Sultan Hussain Mohamed Shah. As of 2020, several of them are still living in Singapore.
It is not known whether the Singapore government even responded to Singh's monarchist proposal.
Harbans Singh graduated from the University of Singapore with a law degree in 1962. He was active in the University Socialist Club and the Singapore Teachers' Union. He became leader of the United People's Front, a political party founded in the 1970s and was active for two decades. Singh held many contrarian positions. For example, he believed that it was pointless for Singapore to spend so much on armed forces as more powerful allies could come to its aid during war. The money, Singh believed, should be spent on the poor instead.
Singh once called on then-First Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to resign because he believed that Goh's suggestion to give principals more independence in running schools would lead to chaos. At two previous press conferences, Harbans Singh had called on then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to resign and dissolve parliament.
Even fellow opposition politicians did not escape Singh's scorn. He once denounced Chiam See Tong as "the worst MP in parliament". He also declared that some of the biggest "rascals and scoundrels" are in the other Opposition parties.
Harbans Singh and his party did not win any of the elections they contested, but he did try very hard and even his children were persuaded to follow his footsteps.
In 1988, Harbans Singh joined Ang Bee Lian and Kassim bin Ibrahim to contest Sembawang GRC. Their opponents were Tony Tan Keng Yam, Charles Chong and Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam of the People's Action Party. Singh's team managed to garner 15,436 votes (29.9%). In 1991, the UPF decided not to contest. Thereafter the party became inactive. Singh faded into obscurity and passed away on 4 December 2004.
In reading various reports about him, it seems that Harbans Singh was an outspoken and fiery critic of the mainstream political convention of his era. He was a political gadfly who never posed a serious threat to the ruling party. As evidenced from his electoral performances, Singh's ideas did not gain mass acceptance among Singaporeans. But he did contribute to the evolution of Singapore democracy by providing an outlet for certain people to cast dissenting votes.
Lee Yue Heng (12/01/2025)