2011 Presidential Election
On 23 June 2011, Tan announced that he would step down from his government-linked positions at GIC and SPH in order to run for the office of President of Singapore. Tan's campaign stressed his independence and his divergent views from the PAP government in specific policies, citing a remark made by East Coast GRC MP Tan Soo Khoon in 2005: “It is probably the first time that I have heard Cabinet Ministers, starting with no less than the Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Tony Tan, expressing divergent views .” However, competing presidential election candidates and former PAP members Tan Kin Lian and Tan Cheng Bock questioned Tan's independence from the party. On 7 July 2011, Tony Tan submitted his presidential eligibility forms.
On 29 July 2011, Tan responded to online allegations that his son Patrick Tan had received preferential treatment during compulsory military service, officially known as National Service (NS) in Singapore. "My sons all completed their National Service obligations fully and I have never intervened in their postings," he said. Tan also noted that he had served as Defence Minister from 1995 to 2003, while Patrick Tan said that it was in 1988 that he been permitted by Singapore's Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) to disrupt his NS for premedical studies in Harvard University and an MD-PhD program in Stanford University under a President’s Scholarship and Loke Cheng Kim Scholarship. MINDEF clarified that, prior to 1992, disruptions were allowed for overseas medical studies, and longer periods of disruption were granted for those admitted to universities in the United States, where medicine is a graduate course. American medical students are required to complete a "pre-medical component for a general undergraduate degree" before applying to medical school. In response to a question in Parliament on the subject of deferments, Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen stated on 20 October 2011 that Patrick Tan had not been given any special treatment.
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