IT IS very important, Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's prime minister, explained last year, that all Singaporeans feel they have a real chance of becoming president. To that end, his government tinkered with the eligibility criteria for candidates. Yet Singaporeans primed for a festival of inclu-siveness at this year's election must be confused. On September nth a committee of senior officials declared that only one candidate was eligible to stand, and that the woman in question, Halimah Yacob, a former speaker of parliament, was thus deemed to have been elected unopposed. She was sworn in on September 14th.
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