11am: Quality Officer D.G. Carole Ann

Ms D.G. Carole Ann, 46, is seated in her wheelchair, looking at a mirror placed in front of her on the dining table. 

The quadruple amputee’s two prosthetic legs – plastered with shiny stickers and emblazoned with her name – are strapped on, shod in new black sneakers. Pressed between the two stumps that are her arms is a SheGlam lipstick – Bold Berry is the shade – which she then dexterously applies to her lips.

The quality officer at an IT company adjusts the pink Under Armour bag slung across her shoulder, breaks into a big smile and signals to her mother Sandra Kumari, 72, and two helpers – Chamika, 24, and Tini, 38 – that she is ready to go and cast her vote for a new Singapore president.

Angel, her partially blind nine-year-old shih tzu, rouses from her slumber and watches the quartet quietly as they make their way out the front door of their four-room Sengkang flat.

The “amble” to the Nan Chiau Primary School polling station in Sengkang is leisurely. Along the way, they pass an assortment of neighbourhood residents, including a middle-aged couple sitting in companionable silence as they look at the colourful chests and offerings they have laid out for errant spirits out roaming during the Hungry Ghost Month.

“I told my mother we must make a sound choice,” says Ms Carole, who has been following the presidential election on news sites and social media platforms. “To me, the president has to represent us overseas. He has to show us that he is credible, has his head on his shoulders and not shoot his mouth off.

“I also want a nurturing and inspiring figure who would do more for the disabled community,” says Ms Carole, who was able-bodied and led a regular life until five years ago when a ruptured cyst in one of her ovaries sent her into septic shock. 

The episode not only put her into a coma but also caused her organs, including her heart, to fail. To save her, doctors gave her inotropes, a class of drugs that saved her life but turned her limbs gangrenous. She had all four limbs amputated in August 2018.

There was a bruising battle with the blues, but her natural effervescence and grit prevailed. Life is tough, she says, but she has found a good job and a good support system. She wants to live life as normally as possible, which is why she is determined to exercise her rights as a voter.

“I’m voting for the sportsman,” she says, referring to presidential candidate Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who was an athlete and avid sportsman in school.

The reason? Ms Carole – who was not sporty before her amputations – has taken up wheelchair rugby and now plays for Wheelchair Rugby Association Of Singapore. She loves the exercise, but she values more the sportsmanship and team spirit she has picked up and the friendships she has made.

“I hope Tharman can relate to wheelchair rugby and other sports and sense of community sports builds. If he gets elected, I hope he will do more for disability sports, and raise more funds to launch outreach programmes for the disabled community.”

12.30pm: Catholic nun, Sister Gerard Fernandez

Sister Gerard Fernandez trudges out of the Good Shepherd Place in Toa Payoh, her right hand holding a walking stick. Another nun, Sister Fiona, holds on to her left arm.

“I’ve not been well,” Sister Gerard says. Old age has been plaguing her 85-year-old body – which has 10 screws implanted in it – with aches and pains.

But she is determined to make the 10-minute trek to First Toa Payoh Primary School to vote in the presidential election.

“He’s going to be my president. It’s important to me,” says Sister Gerard, who joined the Good Shepherd Sisters, a Roman Catholic order of nuns, when she was 18.

She has served the Catholic Church in different capacities over the years, including being a Changi Prison counsellor for those sentenced to hang.

Over four decades, she walked with nearly 20 convicts to the gallows. Among them were Catherine Tan Mui Choo and Hoe Kah Hong, the women who helped medium Adrian Lim kill two children in the sensational ritual murders case of 1981; and Van Tuong Nguyen, an Australian drug trafficker sentenced to death in 2004.

On more than one occasion, she has made known her opposition to the death sentence because it takes away life, which is precious.

“I accept (certain government policies) although I may not approve of them. But I live with them and try to make the best of the situation for those who are affected.”

Asked if she hopes the new president will exercise more clemency to those given the death sentence, she says: “I have a beautiful example with (the late president) Wee Kim Wee.”

The mother of an inmate bound for the gallows had asked her to write to President Wee to beg for clemency.

“I couldn’t refuse her, so I did. I didn’t expect him to kowtow to what I asked, but he wrote me a very nice letter explaining why he couldn’t do it. He also assured me that it was so wonderful of me to do that for the mother. But what else can we do but bring hope to someone in the best way that we can?”

That is what she hopes the new president will do: “Bring hope to the people and make us a hopeful nation.”

Without naming who she is voting for, she says: “The one I want to vote for will surely represent my nation, my country in a way that shows the world we are a people of integrity, that we are small, but big on the world stage. We are small, but we have so much to live for.”

Without skipping a beat, she continues: “I want someone who loves his country and his people, and really comes down to the man and woman in the street and always supports them. I want my head of state to inspire young people to live life to the fullest.”

1.30pm: Community activist Saleemah Ismail

Over the past 10 days, community activist Saleemah Ismail, 53, was embroiled in discussions – sometimes heated ones – about the presidential election, with friends as well as peers in the activist space.

Some of them have decided not to vote because they felt all three candidates were not options they could support.

“Some know Tharman is a good man, but they can’t bring themselves to vote a PAP-endorsed candidate. We didn’t just argue about the merits of the candidates but also the merits of voting,” she says, adding that other friends are not voting, as a form of protest.

It is something she struggles to understand, she says. “Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?”

“So many of us fought for the right to vote. Many women, for instance, suffered in their fight to vote. Yet, we take this right so lightly,” says the feminist and changemaker who co-founded Aidha, a business school for migrants and low-income communities, and who has worked in organisations such as UN Women and UN Development Programme.

Clad in a yellow tudung as she makes her way from her flat in Hooper Road, in Newton, to the St Joseph’s Institution polling station, she has no hesitation declaring who her choice is.

“Mr Tharman is a compassionate leader and has been championing equitable access to opportunities for as long as he has been a leader in public office,” says Ms Saleemah, adding that the sterling community work Mr Tharman and his wife Jane Ittogi have put into Taman Jurong speaks for itself.

“I know he has fought for policies and practices that placed Singaporeans from disadvantaged backgrounds central in the decision-making process... I know he has fought in the trenches for us.”

2pm: Law undergrad Pierre Ip

They are eligible to vote for the first time but some of Mr Pierre Ip’s friends are not excited by the prospect.

“It’s more like they don’t care. They are indifferent, I guess apathetic,” says the final-year law student at the National University of Singapore.

Voting, however, is important.

“It’s a democracy. We have to vote.”

With a grin, the 24-year-old, whose parents are doctors, jokes that he may not care so much “if the people around me didn’t care so much”.

“I got more invested after listening to my parents discussing it with their friends, and then discussing it with my friends myself. We’re law students after all, and should be interested in the elected presidency and the Constitution.

“Anyway, you can’t escape it. It’s everywhere on social media, it’s so in your face,” he says.

However, his decision, he says, is not influenced by what he has seen or heard on social media but more by the presidential broadcast on television.

“Frankly, even that is not super relevant because a lot of the questions were hypothetical, and no one really backed up what they would do with concrete examples. But it did help me to get to know them better. My decision was cemented after the discussion.

“For me, personally, the president is the head of state, and I would prefer to see someone who can handle himself with dignity. Still, the office is a bit far removed, unlike an MP and his or her constituents. I’d probably think a lot harder about the general election.”

3pm: Entrepreneur C.M. Lee

At 3pm, when many Singaporeans are still making their way to polling stations across the island to cast their votes, entrepreneur C.M. Lee, 53, is sitting in his toy-filled apartment on Sentosa, enjoying the sea breeze from his balcony and playing with his pair of one-year-old tortoises Dunhill and Dupont.

The father of eight children, who also has two grandchildren, is not voting.

“I didn’t vote for the last president. This time around, I will also not bother. Mr Tharman will win.”

What if everybody thinks like him, and someone unexpected assumes office.

“Aiyah, trust me, it won’t happen. Mr Tharman will win.”

5pm: Madam Leow Oon Geok, daughter of war hero Lim Bo Seng

Madam Leow Oon Geok has just cast her vote at Raffles Girls’ School when a din announces the arrival of presidential candidate Tharman Shanmugaratnam and his wife Jane Ittogi.

At 91, the daughter of war hero Lim Bo Seng looks 15 years younger, and has a mind sharp as a tack.

Her father, whose tomb is at MacRitchie Reservoir, fought to reclaim Malaya and Singapore from the Japanese during World War II. Captured and tortured by the Japanese, he died in Perak’s Batu Gajah jail in 1944 but was posthumously awarded the rank of major-general by the Chinese Nationalist government.

Voting is important, Madam Leow says, “so that we can choose the right person”.

“If a lot of people decide they do not want to vote, and if the wrong person gets in, you are responsible,” says Madam Leow.

“I’ve been following the presidential campaign and watched the interviews, and from the interviews, I really feel, of the three, Tharman is the best for the job. Ng Kok Song sounds sincere, and I feel he can be a good president, but Tharman has all the experience and has worked with the grassroots.”

She is aware politics has crept into this election with members of opposition parties throwing their weight behind Mr Tan Kin Lian.

“I think there are a lot of people who are very unhappy with the PAP, but they must recognise whether the person they are backing is fit enough for the job and can do it properly,” she says, adding that she hopes a freak result will not ensue.

Her hopes for the new president are simple.

“I just hope the new president will work with the people and have the people’s interests at heart. I hope he will be respected globally and will have the stature to make Singapore proud.”

Correction note: This article has been edited to correct the name of the association that Ms D.G. Carole Ann plays rugby for.