Do we like them?

Do we like Tharman Shanmugaratnam?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A long, clean record on workers, water and inclusion, held back by a go-slow line on LGBTQ+ issues and no sign he's pushed for change.

Tharman is Singapore's ninth president, elected in 2023 after leaving the ruling People's Action Party. He started as an economist at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, then spent 2001 to 2023 in Parliament as Education Minister, Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Senior Minister. He studied at the LSE, Cambridge and Harvard's Kennedy School.

The one real black mark is old. In 1992 a Business Times report ran an unreleased growth figure, and Tharman was originally charged over it. In 1994 he was convicted under the Official Secrets Act of negligence and fined S$1,500. He has said “They got the wrong man”, so he still disputes it, and it's a 30-year-old negligence charge rather than anything about how he treats people.

On the harm check, we found nothing nasty from him. The closest thing is his 2023 campaign answer on LGBTQ+ issues. He said Singapore has divided views, that shifting social norms too quickly could cause pushback, and that “We should not rush this.” Where you land depends on whether you read that as sensible pacing or as dragging the chain for people who've waited long enough. He has not campaigned against LGBTQ+ people, but he hasn't championed them either.

On the wider harm check, his record on workers and the planet is solid. As a minister he backed the Progressive Wage Model, a sector-by-sector wage floor, and told Parliament “no one should assume that you have a monopoly over compassion” in a clash with an opposition MP who wanted a universal minimum wage. Now he co-chairs the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and the World Bank's jobs advisory council.

He has talked about the personal cost of speaking up. In 2023 he said he was a student activist and told others to keep going: “I paid the price for it along the way.” His causes on the official biography are social mobility, multiculturalism, lifelong learning and jobs, and he has chaired a trust for Singapore's Indian community. The awards are real too: the NTUC Medal of Honour in 2017 and the Miriam Pozen Prize in 2025.

Nothing new has turned up on him lately beyond routine presidential work like Budget approvals and state visits, so we have no fresh stoush to report. The president's role is non-partisan, which also limits how much we can judge him by his votes now.