SINGAPORE – Former senior minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam is set to be Singapore’s next president based on his overwhelming lead in the sample count, with 70 per cent of the vote.

Former GIC chief investment officer Ng Kok Song, 75, received 16 per cent, while former NTUC Income chief Tan Kin Lian, 75, received 14 per cent, according to the sample count result released by the Elections Department (ELD) at about 10.40pm on Friday.

The final result is expected to come around midnight.

Speaking to the media at Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre shortly after the sample count was released, Mr Tharman said he was truly humbled by the strong endorsement he had received from the Singaporean electorate.

He thanked Singaporeans for following the issues closely and for engaging calmly throughout the presidential election period, and his fellow candidates for having “put full effort and energy into their campaigns, and made it a worthy contest”.

“I’m humbled by this vote – it is not just a vote for me, it is a vote for Singapore’s future, a future of optimism and solidarity,” he added.

“That’s what it really is. My campaign was one of optimism and solidarity, and I believe that’s what Singaporeans want.”

The sample count is based on a sampling of 100 ballot papers from each of the 1,264 polling stations for this election, and was done at the start of counting soon after polls closed at 8pm.

The numbers are said to be fairly indicative of the possible outcome of the election, with previous sample counts typically having a confidence level of 95 per cent, plus or minus 4 percentage points.

This means that the sample count estimate should not differ from the actual voting result by more than 4 per cent for 95 per cent of the estimates made.

This is only the third time that Singaporeans are voting for their president since the elected presidency was introduced in 1991. The first such contested election was in 1993, and the second was in 2011.

In the morning, Mr Ng and Mr Tan had cast their votes at their respective assigned polling stations in Katong and Ang Mo Kio, while Mr Tharman went to his assigned voting station in Bukit Timah in the late afternoon.

All three candidates also visited polling stations around the island to observe proceedings.

Speaking to reporters after he cast his ballot, Mr Tharman said the voting process had been very smooth, and commended the election officials for a job well done.

“Some of them had to start at 5am; they have been going through the day, they had to deal with some computer glitches in the morning but they dealt with it very well, I thought. 

“So kudos to all the election officials all over the island,” he said at the polling station at Raffles Girls’ Primary School.

Polls opened at 8am, with long queues forming at some polling centres amid issues with the voter registration system.

But the situation eased by around 10am, and voting proceeded smoothly throughout the day, with more than half of all eligible voters having voted by noon.

By noon, some 52 per cent of voters had cast their ballots. In comparison, 31 per cent of voters had cast their votes by the same time in the 2020 General Election.

The majority of voters, some 74 per cent, had voted by 3pm, leaving many polling stations rather quiet throughout the rest of the day.

An hour before polls closed, Mr Ng, who was visiting a polling station at Block 9C Boon Tiong Road, told reporters there: “I can sense a certain enthusiasm to vote. It’s very positive.”

At the close of the polls, election officials at polling stations sealed up the ballot boxes, and took them to various counting centres across the island.

Mr Tan left his home in Cactus Crescent at around 7.45pm and visited nine counting centres before returning home at about 10.20pm.

Two of the candidates organised watch parties to await the results, with Mr Ng’s supporters and family members gathered at the office of social media agency Gushcloud and Mr Tan’s supporters gathered in his home.

The buffet at Mr Ng’s party included fried rice, mee siam, chicken wings, popiah, nasi lemak and a sugee cake bearing his campaign logo.

He and his fiancee Sybil Lau, 45, arrived at the party shortly after 10pm.

At Mr Tan’s home, there was spaghetti, curry, spring rolls, vegetables and pineapple fried rice, and those who turned up included former presidential candidate and opposition politician Tan Jee Say, who had stumped for Mr Tan during the campaign.

While Mr Tan was not home, his wife Tay Siew Hong, 67, and family were home.

Mr Tharman did not have a watch party that was open to the media, but there was a spontaneous gathering of hundreds of his supporters at Taman Jurong Market and Food Centre in his former constituency of Jurong GRC.

Many of them had brought with them pineapples, the campaign logo Mr Tharman chose for this election.

When Mr Tharman turned up at the food centre at about 10pm with his wife Jane Ittogi, 69, supporters lining the three floors of the food centre broke into chants of “ong lai” and “huat ah”.

Ong lai means pineapple in Hokkien, and also good fortune to come. Huat ah is a Hokkien phrase used to express prosperity.

The ELD introduced the announcement of sample counts in the 2015 General Election to prevent unnecessary speculation, and reliance on unofficial sources of information, before all the votes are tallied and the final results are announced.