Politics
Times are changing
Singapore leaders will have to engage with its people if they want prosperity and stability to continue, writes Roderick Clyne.
May 20, 2009

Tribune Magazine (UK)
SINGAPORE has been agog over a row in recent weeks that might be regarded as no more than a storm in a teacup in some other countries.

A previously unremarkable feminist group called Aware (the Association of Women for Action and Research), which among its other activities advises on sex education in schools, was taken over in a surprise putsch at its annual general meeting.

It emerged that the takeover had been organised by the Church of Our Saviour, a small group of born-again Christians virulently opposed to homosexuality – a subject on which Aware had supposedly been far too non-judgmental.

Over the next few days, there was a big fight-back. Aware’s hitherto tiny membership increased dramatically and the new executive, mostly members of the Church of Our Saviour, was itself ousted at a special general meeting.

Unsurprisingly, opinion polls suggested that most women across the island were not bothered about the issue at the heart of the dispute – lesbians and gays – and were far more concerned about bread-and-butter issues, particularly the collapse in the economy.

But what is very surprising about all this is what did not happen. The government of Singapore took no action.

It let the opposing sides get on with their battle without intervening and without even expressing an opinion – although there is said to be a strong presence of born-again Christians at senior levels in the government.

For 50 years, the People’s Action Party has been in power and has ruled on almost everything in the public domain.

If the government didn’t like something – chewing gum, say, or Muslim headscarves in schools – it was promptly banned.

And the government’s policies tended to be enforced vigorously with draconian penalties for those in breach of the law.

However, it now seems that Singapore’s leaders, including the PAP’s founding father, the 85-year-old Lee Kuan Yew, might be relaxing at last – at least to a small degree.

The PAP celebrates five decades in power on June 3, with Lee Kuan Yew having been prime minister for more than three of those decades. He remains in the cabinet, and is still respected and feared in equal measure.

The clash at Aware comes as the PAP is preparing for new parliamentary elections, even though the last ones were held as recently as May 2005.(Littlespeck: should read 2006)

As the old joke goes: with American elections you know exactly when they will take place and only the outcome is uncertain, but in Singapore you don’t know the election date until two weeks before, although the outcome is never in doubt.

Even so, it would be sensible for the island’s rulers to get these elections over with soon, in case the public sense of well-being evaporates.

Singapore’s export-led economy is not doing well.

Unemployment is rising and the latest International Monetary Fund report on the economic outlook for Asia and the Pacific forecasts that Singapore will experience an overall contraction this year.

However, so far, people do not appear to blame the government or wish to seek revenge.

At the 2006 election, the PAP gained 66.6 per cent of the vote across those constituencies that were contested.

The opposition is fragmented and largely personality-based, but the various rival parties do usually manage to get together before an election to decide which of them stands where – meaning that there is never a three-way fight.

Even so, there are only two opposition-held seats. Before 1981, there were none.

Out of Singapore’s 4.8 million population, which includes foreigners, there are 2.26 million adult citizens registered to vote.

The population is largely of Chinese background, but there are sizeable Malay and Indian minorities.

Despite their high public profile, the Christians number just 15 per cent of the population – about the same proportion as Muslims or people with no religious affiliation.

More than 40 per cent are, at least nominally, Buddhist.

Singapore is a small island, with few genuinely local issues dividing the different areas.

There are roughly similar income distributions in each constituency and there are no single-race ghettos, so the winning margin is broadly similar in most seats.

But this strength is also a potential trap. Although winning two-thirds of the vote constitutes a huge endorsement by any reckoning, the PAP’s share of the vote has been declining in successive elections.

Should it reach tipping point, the consequence would be very sudden and profound, with almost every parliamentary seat changing hands at one go.

The PAP was founded as a socialist party, but quit the Socialist International in 1976 after the Dutch Labour Party proposed to expel it for its authoritarian leanings.

Even so, it has had successes of which any left-leaning political party would be proud.

Singapore has a huge and well-maintained public housing system, a progressive tax policy, general prosperity and the world’s most successful planned economy.

In contrast to Malaysia and Thailand, abortion is legal and available.

Government investment funds control most strategic local operations and they have large stakes in many other corporations, including banks around the world.

This has led to large paper losses of late, but the investments are expected to come good in time.

All this has been organised from the base of a small political party that is organised on Leninist lines.

Since the island’s newspapers have to seek a licence in order to publish, no one should expect to find criticism of the government in the press.

The internet does not have to contend with such restrictions and plays host to much of what public debate there is.

Apart from voting from time to time, the population as a whole has little interest in politics.

Some say that they were warned off such sensitive subjects when at school – “You’ll only get into trouble; it’s far safer to think about other things”.

As one businessman put it to me: “We’ve got an unwritten agreement with the government. We don’t interfere with them and in return they let us make lots of money.”

Singapore’s government is only just waking up to the idea that this lack of engagement might be a problem.

Politicians are now saying in public that, with so few people wanting to have anything to do with politics, they are concerned about where the next generation of leaders will come from. ]

There is even no obvious candidate for prime minister in waiting.

In such a vacuum, without mass participation in public life, the power of small groups of fanatics could well increase.

Following the Aware furore, it is clear that one potential source of such fanaticism is the membership of born-again Christian cliques.

It looks like Singaporeans are going to need to learn to take an interest in politics for a change. - The Tribune Magazine

Comment

W Y
The very authoritarian nature of the PAP government could very well be the undoing of Singapore.
The general election is not proof of the PAP democratic credentials; they conform with the letter but not the spirit of a parliamentary democracy.
A system where political commentators run the risks of being sued by the ruling class is no democracy.

http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2009/05/18/singapore’s-times-are-finally-changing/