Ong Teng Cheong (22 January 1936 – 8 February 2002) was a Singaporean architect and politician who served as the fifth president of Singapore between 1993 and 1999 after winning the 1993 presidential election.
Born when Singapore was part of the Straits Settlements, Ong was educated at the University of Adelaide, where he studied architecture. He later received a Colombo Plan scholarship and earned a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Liverpool. In 1967, Ong joined the Ministry of National Development (MND) as a town planner. After four years in the civil service, he resigned in 1971 and established his own architectural firm, Ong & Ong Architects & Town Planners, with his wife Ling Siew May who was also an architect.
Ong became involved in politics in the early 1970s, joining the People's Action Party (PAP). He was elected as an MP for the Kim Keat Constituency in the 1972 general election and served until 1991, after which he represented the Kim Keat division of the Toa Payoh Group Representation Constituency until 1993. He also served as PAP's Chairman from 1981 to 1993 and held ministerial positions including Minister for Communications (1978–1981), Minister for Labour (1981–1983) and Deputy Prime Minister (1985–1993). In Parliament, Ong was best known for advocating the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), the largest construction project in Singapore's history at the time. A union leader, he was also the Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) from 1983 to 1993.
On 16 August 1993, Ong resigned from both the PAP and Parliament to contest the 1993 presidential election, winning 58.7% of the vote. He was nicknamed the "People's President" for being Singapore's first directly elected president and was sworn in on 1 September 1993, concurrently leaving his position at NTUC. He decided not to run for a second term as president in 1999, in part due to the illness and death of his wife. He was succeeded by S. R. Nathan. Ong died from lymphoma in 2002 at the age of 66.
Ong was born on 22 January 1936 to Ong Keng Wee and Chung Lai Heng in Singapore, the second of five children from a middle-class family. His English-educated father Ong Keng Wee felt that the Chinese language was important if one ever wanted to become successful in business at the time and thus sent all of his children to Chinese-medium schools.
Ong graduated with distinctions from The Chinese High School in 1955. Having received a Chinese-language education, Ong saw little opportunity for advancing his studies in the University of Malaya, as English was the university's language medium.
In 1956, with the help of his father's friends, Ong ventured abroad. Those years were to shape both his beliefs and passions. Ong studied architecture at the University of Adelaide along with his childhood sweetheart and future wife, Ling Siew May. In 1965, Ong received a Colombo Plan scholarship to pursue a master's degree in urban planning at the University of Liverpool and graduated in 1967.
Upon graduation, Ong worked as an architect in Adelaide, Australia.
In 1967, Ong joined the Ministry of National Development (MND) as a town planner. After four years of civil service, Ong resigned in 1971, and started his own architectural firm, Ong & Ong Architects & Town Planners, with his wife.
Ong's political career spanned 21 years. He was a Member of Parliament (MP), Cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister, before he resigned to become the first elected President of Singapore in 1993.
Ong's political beginnings started when he got involved in the grassroots activities in Seletar and was then introduced to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The People's Action Party (PAP) subsequently fielded him as a PAP candidate contesting in Kim Keat SMC during the 1972 general election.
His first political appointment came just three years later when he was appointed Senior Minister of State for Communications. At that time, he was notable for pushing for an extensive rail network in the country, now known as the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), the largest construction project in Singapore's history. During his tenure as Minister for Communications, Ong continued to be a proponent and advocate of the MRT system, often coming at odds with his fellow political colleagues who were against such an idea. He was subsequently appointed Second Deputy Prime Minister in 1985.
The origins of the MRT was first derived from a forecast by the country's planners back in 1967 which stated the need for a rail-based urban transport system by 1992. However, opposition from the government on the feasibility of the MRT from prominent ministers, among them Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee and Trade and Industry Minister Tony Tan, nearly shuttered the programme due to financial grounds and concerns of jobs saturation in the construction industry.
Following a debate on whether a bus-only system would be more cost-effective, Ong came to the conclusion that an all-bus system would be inadequate, as it would have to compete for road space in a land-scarce country. Ong was an architect and town planner by training and through his perseverance and dedication became the main figure behind the initial construction of the system. Ong and other pro-rail advocates eventually won the argument, with the MRT being given the go-ahead in May 1982.
In 1983, Ong succeeded Lim Chee Onn as Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). Historically, the NTUC, representing non-communist trade unions in Singapore, maintained a notably close relationship with the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) as part of a tripartite system involving the government, employers, and unions. This alliance was instrumental to the PAP's consolidation of power during the 1960s.
Despite this longstanding partnership, tensions between the NTUC leadership and the grassroots union base had begun to surface by the 1980s. In 1982, Lim, then still Secretary-General, publicly affirmed the deep historical ties between the two organisations, declaring that the "PAP and the NTUC came from the same mother—the struggle with the communists and the colonialists." Nevertheless, internal frictions were becoming more pronounced. According to political analyst Michael Barr, the NTUC leadership had come to be dominated by technocrats aligned with the PAP, many of whom were seen as distant from the traditional labour movement. Older grassroots union leaders increasingly felt sidelined in decision-making processes.
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew expressed concern that Lim, despite being his protégé, was not successfully integrating the new generation of elite professionals and scholars with the rank-and-file union leadership. This failure to harmonise the NTUC's leadership structure led to growing unease among the grassroots. Lim's predecessors included figures such as Devan Nair, the NTUC's founder and a prominent democratic socialist from the PAP's Old Guard, and Phey Yew Kok, a powerful union figure instrumental in bringing Chinese unions into the NTUC fold during the 1970s. Phey, however, resigned in 1980 amidst a corruption scandal and subsequently fled the country.
Discontent with the NTUC's leadership became more visible in the early 1980s. The United Workers of Petroleum Industry (UWPI), along with the NTUC Triennial Delegates' Conference, publicly opposed government efforts to promote the establishment of house unions, a move that provoked political concern within the PAP leadership. In an open letter, Lee informed Lim that he would be reassigned to head a government ministry, and that Ong would assume the position of Secretary-General of the NTUC. Though the role of Secretary-General was typically held by a Cabinet member, Ong's appointment was notable. At the time, he served concurrently as Minister for Labour and Chairman of the PAP, and was widely regarded as a potential successor to Lee.