Governing Global-City Singapore

Legacies and Futures After Lee Kuan Yew

Kenneth Paul Tan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317224433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Staatsbürgerkunde & Bürgerrechte

This book provides a detailed analysis of how governance in Singapore has evolved since independence to become what it is today, and what its prospects might be in a post-Lee Kuan Yew future. Firstly, it discusses the question of political leadership, electoral dominance and legislative monopoly in Singapore's one-party dominant system and the system's durability. Secondly, it tracks developments in Singapore's public administration, critically analysing the formation and transformation of meritocracy and pragmatism, two key components of the state ideology. Thirdly, it discusses developments within civil society, focusing in particular on issues related to patriarchy and feminism, hetero-normativity and gay activism, immigration and migrant worker exploitation, and the contest over history and national narratives in academia, the media and the arts. Fourthly, it discusses the PAP government's efforts to connect with the public, including its national public engagement exercises that can be interpreted as a subtler approach to social and political control. In increasingly complex conditions, the state struggles to maintain its hegemony while securing a pre-eminent position in the global economic order. Tan demonstrates how trends in these four areas converge in ways that signal plausible futures for a post-LKY Singapore.

1 Singapore’s dominant party system

On the night of 11 September 2015, pundits, journalists, political bloggers, academics, and others in Singapore’s chattering classes watched in long-drawn amazement as the media reported excitedly on the results of independent Singapore’s twelfth parliamentary elections that trickled in until the very early hours of the morning. It became increasingly clear as the night wore on, and any optimism for change wore off, that the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) had swept the votes in something of a landslide victory that would have puzzled even the PAP itself (Zakir, 2015).

In the 2015 general elections (GE2015), the incumbent party won 69.9 per cent of the total votes (see Table 1.1). The Workers’ Party (WP), the leading opposition party that had five elected members in the previous parliament, lost their Punggol East seat in 2015 with 48.2 per cent of the votes cast in that single-member constituency (SMC). With 51 per cent of the votes, the WP was able to hold on to Aljunied, a five-member group representation constituency (GRC), by a very slim margin of less than 2 per cent. It was also able to hold on to Hougang SMC with a more convincing win of 57.7 per cent. However, it was undoubtedly a hard defeat for the opposition.

The strong performance by the PAP bucked the trend observed since GE2001, when it had won 75.3 per cent of the total votes, the highest percentage since independence. In GE2006, this dropped to 66.6 per cent. In GE2011, it dropped even further to 60.1 per cent, the PAP’s worst performance since Singapore gained independence. The PAP lost Aljunied GRC to the opposition and, as a result, two high-profile senior politicians, Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Lim Hwee Hua, lost their seats. This downward trend was even more significant when considered in the context of a rising trend in the percentage of overall seats that were contested: in GE2001, opposition parties fielded candidates in only 35 per cent of the seats; in GE2006, it was 56 per cent; and in GE2011, this percentage rose to 94 per cent. Thus, in GE2015, when 100 per cent of the seats were contested, there was every expectation that the PAP would only manage to win the election with a much smaller margin.

Two by-elections followed GE2011. The first, in 2012, was called when Yaw Shing Leong, WP Member of Parliament (MP) for Hougang, was expelled from the party, following rumours that he had had an extramarital affair with a party member. In the by-election on 26 May 2012, WP candidate Png Eng Huat beat the PAP candidate Desmond Choo with a percentage of 62.1. Yaw had won the SMC in GE2011 with 64.8 per cent of the votes. In 2013, PAP MP for Punggol East and Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer also resigned as the result of an extramarital affair. WP candidate Lee Li Lian, who had lost Punggol East with 41.1 per cent of the votes in GE2011, won it in the by-election on 26 January 2013 with 54.5 per cent, beating the PAP candidate Koh Poh Koon by more than 10 per cent of the votes.

Table 1.1 General elections since 1984

Sources: Singapore Elections, available: www.singapore-elections.com/ (accessed 2 May 2016); Chew Hui Min (2015) ‘GE2015: A look back at the last 5 general elections from 1991 to 2011’, The Straits Times, 28 August.

These results signalled a rise in the fortunes of the opposition. The WP was able to recruit highly credentialed candidates, engage deeply with the constituency grassroots, and impose a tightly disciplined management style that paid attention to public communications and party branding. More than any other opposition party, the WP was able to ‘bridge the credibility gap’ (Ong and Tim, 2014). GE2011 seemed to mark the start of a ‘new normal’, a time when the ruling party could expect tougher criticism and more compelling challenges from opposition parties, civil society groups, and private citizens. Singapore’s usually placid civil society was starting to be populated by more articulate and politically sophisticated advocacy groups, alongside the usually timid private interest and civic outreach groups. Public intellectuals were emerging to provide ideological leadership, often of a counterhegemonic nature. More widespread popular participation in social media had amplified their consciousness-raising powers.

All these signs seemed to suggest that Singapore had been moving slowly but surely along the trajectory of liberal democratization. Thus, the PAP landslide victory and the opposition’s crushing defeat in 2015 were a puzzle to many. The media and several political watchers were understandably quick to describe this as a national swing back to the PAP, pointing to an immanent collapse of the opposition. Should GE2015 be seen as evidence that weakens the liberal democratization thesis by confirming Singapore’s exceptional nature? Does Singapore’s political development take on a cyclical rather than linear form? Or should GE2015 be regarded as a glitch in time, which will soon yield to the inevitable logic and force of political liberalization? In an attempt to solve this puzzle – and to plot plausible democratic trajectories into Singapore’s future – a good start would be to analyse the possible reasons behind votes for and against the PAP and votes for and against the opposition.

Explaining the anti-PAP vote

Those who voted against the PAP in GE2015, or wanted to do so, would have had the following reasons for doing it.

Elitist public image, ineffective public communications

The PAP’s public image has become increasingly elitist. In the social media age, their elite behaviour and inability to communicate with ordinary Singaporeans without making terrible faux pas have become widely observed and criticized (Loh, 2013; M.S. Goh, 2015).

The party began with social democratic roots that took the egalitarian aspects of meritocracy as seriously as the more capitalistic values of competitiveness, incentive, and reward that eventually came to dominate its worldview. In the 1990s, Singapore became more deeply embedded in globalization and embraced more fully the private-sector values of ‘new public management’ (NPM). During this time, meritocracy was transforming into a vulgar form of elitism, where a highly-paid and exulted leadership, no longer representative of the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Singapore, made policies that were technically proficient, yet unresponsive to the expressed concerns of the common people (Balji, 2013). NPM meant giving the people a high-quality customer experience when they received government services, but not necessarily taking their input as citizens seriously. Widening inequalities of income and wealth exacerbated the perception that the PAP, a party for the elite, the rich, and foreigners, was interested only in perpetuating itself and its rewards. In reaction, a mass politics of disengagement, mistrust, and envy was fast emerging (Wembridge, 2015).

The PAP government’s record of successfully developing Singapore from ‘Third World to First’ in a short span of half a century has engendered paternalistic arrogance, an inflated sense of superiority and self-importance, and a dismissive attitude towards quotidian experiences that matter to people (Khoo, 2015). With lifestyles, values, and worldviews that seemed generally to be those of the elite, PAP leaders often showed themselves to be out of touch with the ground, dismissing popular emotions and ordinary experience as irrelevant or simply wrong (ashwini, 2015; Chin, 2015). To ordinary Singaporeans, several PAP candidates lacked empathy and emotional intelligence (Chang, 2013).

Singaporeans reacted critically to what they considered to be callous and insensitive comments made in public by the PAP elite, including a reference to ‘natural aristocracy’ made at a high-profile conference (Xu, 2015); an observation posted online that senior citizens who were out on the streets collecting cardboard to earn some money were actually doing this for exercise (Palatino, 2015); and, in response to a parliamentary question about Singaporeans on public assistance, the retort: ‘How much do you want? Do you want three meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant?’ (Loh, 2010). Through social media, netizens showed their displeasure, compiled lists of follies, and circulated them online (‘Infamous quotes’, 2015). Even though several opposition candidates had also been caught making gaffes in public (Wee, 2015), they were not readily viewed in the light of elitism. While it is unlikely that any of the PAP politicians intended to be insulting or derogatory, their words and actions were read as a reflection of the true feelings of the elite.

Those who attempted to connect with ordinary Singaporeans by sounding folksy, presumably to dispel the image of being out of touch, ended up sounding condescending, insincere, and inauthentic (Chang, 2013). When a junior minister tried to discredit a charismatic veteran opposition politician by mocking his actions through sarcasm and a grating use of colloquial expressions, her efforts fell flat and made her the subject of popular derision (Yap, 2015). One very senior minister peppered his speeches with folksy analogies that were sometimes ironic: when he compared the opposition to the rooster that took credit for the sun’s rising, he may not have realized how the audience might have compared that to the PAP’s taking wholesale credit for Singapore’s success (P. Lee, 2015). PAP politicians were also mocked and criticized for other reasons. A rookie candidate thumped his chest like a jubilant gladiator as his team addressed the public on nomination day. A veteran politician made an off-colour joke about how fortunate he was that his father had left China for Singapore and that Singapore had separated from Malaysia, or else, he said with exaggerated relief, he might still be a Chinese or Malaysian citizen (‘Lim Swee Say criticized’, 2015). An MP posted on his Facebook page so many selfies that they bordered on self-promotional narcissism (Cheong, 2015).

These individually unsuccessful attempts to connect with the ground may also be a symptom of a broadly superficial and inauthentic approach to public engagement. To a technocratic government that views the world through a dehumanizing lens of hard data and technical analysis, unable to acknowledge the value of emotions and other intangibles in the hard business of policymaking and leadership, public engagement was understood to be public education and – especially in the social media age – image management and public relations. Facts and figures were used to dismiss popular concerns and emotions. Only the PAP establishment were privileged to determine what the facts were and how they should be interpreted. Furthermore, the government has not been very open to the public when it comes to information, data, and statistics (Biswas and Hartley, 2015).

Some PAP politicians, especially during election campaigns and public debates, often treated their adversaries with little respect, engaging them in a humiliating and bullying style. As illustrated in Chapter 4, they made ad hominem arguments to ridicule their opponents instead of debating issues and principles. They showed an inability to listen and converse, always wanting to win an argument, cut people off, and have the last word. They were unable to admit their mistakes or that their opponent may have a good point. Their logic was ‘either/or’ and ‘all-or-nothing’, which made it difficult for them to compromise or collaborate.

Several PAP politicians have come down hard on their opponents, especially during election campaigns, with the media compliantly reinforcing and augmenting the censure. For instance, one minister after another attacked the WP for mismanagement of the town council under its care, thus preventing the short nine-day campaign period from being used as a platform for discussing the WP manifesto. The PAP establishment continues to use lawsuits to deal with its critics, an approach that suffuses the public sphere with a cloud of anxiety that, alongside a culture of political apathy, constrains citizen participation in its fullest sense. All of this could be off-putting to voters, some of whom might have viewed it as bullying and lacking a sense of fair play. Their sympathies lay with the underdog.

From pragmatism to ideological fixation

Some voters associated PAP government policies with an obsessive economic growth agenda that did not pay enough attention to other primary goals for the nation such as equity, cultural flourishing, or human well-being. As argued in Chapter 3, what the government often celebrated as its brand of pragmatism turned out to be indistinguishable from a kind of market fundamentalism, where the unquestioned and unquestionable goal was economic growth, while the means for achieving it rarely strayed beyond the neoliberal capitalist range of policy options. Some voters have become concerned about the way that such policies have threatened Singapore’s cultural, architectural, and natural heritage, sense of place, and national identity. This concern was especially lifted by the wave of nostalgia generated by the nation’s 50th anniversary celebrations, which are discussed in Chapter 8. To these voters, the basis of the PAP’s authority had become excessively transactional and lacked the heroism, vision, broadmindedness, and inspiration of transformational leadership (Johannis, 2015).

Some voters also noted how neoliberal market fundamentalism and an obsession with growth ignored the fact that there had not been the kind of trickle-down effect that the government had promised would benefit more Singaporeans. The sense of a widening income gap and a wealth gap was palpable at the day-to-day level, as densely populated Singapore with its banking and wealth management system made itself more attractive to the global super-rich. In the meantime, the government’s resistance to a more comprehensive social welfare system (beyond workfare schemes and constant urging to upgrade and up-skill) and policies like minimum wage, made it unpopular among voters who have seen or were themselves experiencing the problems of poverty (including the aged poor) and high cost of living and doing business (‘The stingy nanny’, 2010). The neoliberal capitalist economy also demanded a liberal immigration policy, as discussed in Chapter 6, perceived by many voters as the PAP government’s folly, which placed foreigners first and Singaporeans second.

The next two chapters show how decades of successful government, mostly admired by a citizenry grateful for its broad tangible benefits, have also reinforced a sense of self-importance among the elite, transforming a pragmatically adaptive outlook into a dogmatic, risk-averse adherence to outmoded success formulas, even as circumstances change.

Policy failures

While the PAP suffered from negative public perception that its candidates were arrogant and insensitive to the changing needs of ordinary Singaporeans, they were also being criticized for their competence. In recent years, the electorate has held the government accountable for letting a suspected terrorist escape from detention and for a series of disruptive flash floods, among other things. They also blamed the government for policy failures leading to Singapore becoming one of the most expensive and overcrowded cities in the world. Public housing has become less affordable and public transportation has failed to live up to the demands of the population. Deep inequalities of income and wealth are not just abstract concepts, but closely felt realities in the everyday lives of this small and dense city. For these failings, the prime minister (PM) publicly apologized to the people, whic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Singapore’s dominant party system
• 2 Harnessing talent for a macho-meritocratic elite
• 3 Pragmatism and the neoliberal state
• 4 The patriarchal state’s feminization of civil society
• 5 Gay activism, religious conservatism, and the policing of neoliberal crises
• 6 Moral panic and the migrant worker folk devil
• 7 Inventing and reinventing the public
• 8 The Singapore Story: censorship and nostalgia in the creative city
• 9 Imagining futures after Lee Kuan Yew
• Index