This was the first time the President of Singapore would be elected the people. Candidates had to fulfill rigorous criteria in order to obtain a Certficate of Eligibility from the Presidential Elections Committee to file their nominations, such having served for a minimum of three years as a minister, top civil servant, chairman or chief executive of a government or private company with $100 million paid-up capital. Deposit would be three times the amount required for a candidate in a Parliamentary election. A former PAP Deputy Prime Minister - Ong Teng Cheong - was pitted against a "non-party" candidate - former Accountant-General Chua Kim Yeow - who sat in the board of several listed companies. Ong had to resign from PAP under Presidential Election laws but was the PAP government's "endorsed" candidate, with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew and several PAP Ministers speaking well of him. Although two other Ministers who were in the finance industry, Dr Tony Tan and Dr Richard Hu, and some PAP backbenchers backed the ex-civil servant Chua, this was still described by political observers as a "PAP versus opposition" contest. Ong won but with a lower-than-expected share of the votes and the outcome was perceived as how a credible "opposition" candidate could garner a large chunk of support away from a former key leader of the "omnipotent" ruling party.

Nomination day: 18 August 1993 [Wed]
Polling day: 28 August 1993 [Sat]

Total voters: 1,756,517
Total voter turnout: 1,659,482 (94.5%)

Election deposit: $18,000

RESULTS
	ONG Teng Cheong, 58 Deputy Prime Minister [M]		CHUA Kim Yeow, 66 Director [M]
952,513 (58.7%)		670,358 (41.3%)

ONG Teng Cheong wins by 282,155 (17.4%) votes

Valid votes: 1,622,871 (97.8%)

Rejected votes: 36,611 (2.2%)