LEE KUAN YEW'S Singapore never
fails to make the newspaper headlines
Worthington's is a long list: "The world's second
longest serving prisoner of conscience" - Chia Thye Poh's detention
under the Internal Security Act from 1966 to 1998; the prosecution
and jailing of some of the Jehovah's Witnesses and Unification Church;
the jailing in 1974 of the student leader Tan Wah Piao; the amendment
of the University of Singapore Act to ensure that student organisations
had no political role; the detention in 1987 of 22 activists of
Roman Catholic social organisations; removal of the right of The Law
Society to comment on legislation; the fraud charge against J B Jeyaratnam
and his disbarment, his being taken to court thrice for defamation, declared
bankrupt twice, his disbarment from standing for parliamentary elections,
his fining and and reprimand by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee
and his expulsion from Parliament.
The arrest under the ISA of Francis Seow, candidate
for the Workers Party, and accusation of taxation fraud
and his asylum in the USA ; and the libel action against Devan Nair
for a comment on the BBC in 1988; the dismissal of Dr Chee Soon
Juan from his post in the National University of Singapore; the large
award of damages against him when three PAP men sued him in 1992;
in 1994 the case of Lee Kuan Yew against the International Herald Tribune
for writing about dynastic succession; the contempt case against Dr Christopher
Lingle, a visiting profresor, for suggesting that some regimes in East
Asia were able to thwart criticism by relying upon " a compliant judiciary
to bankrupt opposition politicians", and the attack on the writer Catherine
Lim for two articles.
To Worthington's list must be added, Utusan Melayu's Said
Zahari - The Times, PEN and Amnesty International's Prisoner of Conscience
- who was in for 17 years, Dr Lim Hock Siew 20 years, Dr Poh Soo
Kai 17 years and the lawyer, Tan Jing Quee, 4 years.
But this book is not about stories behind the headlines. It
is a serious study of the state system where "things are designed
to ensure the PAP's control of institutions of state is absolute"..
Worthington tries, he says, to understand the complexity and dynamics
of this "neo-Gramscian hegemonic" state which is "in some sense
corporatist, authoritarian and oligarchic and even elitist with overtones
of the garrison state" but which "is also more than all these
separately"
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Core executive
In an examination of the legislative system Worthington defines
the power game in Singapore as "the old colonial rules onto which has
ben grafted an hegemonic game plan which has made the most of the unreformed
Westminster tendency of maintaining social and political control, limiting
political opposition and maintaining the prerogatives of state secrecy,
executive dominance and responsibility over accountability. These rules
of the game plan revolve around a "core executive" of power brokers.
In this system an opposition in Parliament is unnecessary,
even a nuisance. As Rajaratnam, a powerful PAP ideologue, has said,
"The role of an opposition is to ensure bad government." Worthington
adds: "Without an effective opposition, the Singapore parliament functions
more like a party caucus than a legislature and backbenches remain on the
fringes of the core executive"
The legislative system, centred on the maintenance of hegemonic
control of the PAP, ensures tight control by a core elite. Ministers
can make regulations retrospectively. The courts, as one attorney general
has said, should have "a self conscious deference by judges towards the
decisions of persons who have relatively greater technical and substantive
expertise and are consequently better equipped to decide... " The risk
of interference is avoided or limited e.g. in the Societies Act, Trade
Unions Act, Industrial Relations Act, Employment Act, Government Proceedings
Act, Passports Act, Income Tax Act, and Education Act
Even the president of the state is under executive control.
In addition to controls, the president can be attacked and discredited
as was done in the case of Devan Nair who was charged with alcoholism,
wife beating, adultery and sexual harassment
On the judicial side a more active role is advocated by the
chief justice Yong Pung How who said in the case of Colin Chan against
Prosecutor (a Jehovah's Witnesses appeal), "... any administration
which perceives the possibility of trouble over religious beliefs and
yet prefers to wait until trouble is just about to break out before taking
action must be not only pathetically naive but also grossly incompetent."
The courts must be free of foreign influence. The chief justice
said in the same case: " I am not influenced by the various views as enunciated
in the American cases citied to me but instead must restrict my analysis
o f the issues here with reference to the local context"
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PAP
knows best
Control over judges is by the Judges Remuneration Act 1994. Salaries
of judges are paid at discretion of Minister of Finance, not by Parliament.
The trend is to increase the work load of the subordinate courts which
now handle 95% of the cases. Those who sit in those courts are not professional
judges, they are all civil servants on short term appointments; control
is absolute, if the executive wishes, concludes Worthington.
Th government is tough on lawyers. In 1986 Lee Kuan
Yew said "It is my job as prime minister in charge of government to
put a stop to politicking in professional bodies. If you want to politick,
come out ... you form your own party or join Mr Jeyaratnam " In 1976 a
lawyer was imprisoned under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act
for seeking judicial review of his client who was also being held under
the Act. Counsel for the International Herald Tribune in a defamation
case had all his property holdings except his family home acquired
under the Land Acquisition Act
In 1986 changes to the newspaper and printing presses
further tightened control over the press. Foreign papers circulation
were terminated or restricted for criticising the government Print
media were forced to amalgamate into the Singapore Press Holdings which
is controlled by government through "management shares, " a fact noticed
by Eric Ellis in his article "Climate control in the Singapore Press"
which appeared in The Australian, June 21 2001. Eric Ellis tells us
that tight control is exercised by senior editors all of whom were high
ranking officers of the Internal Security Service.
The "adaptations adjusted to suit the practical realities
of our position" (Lee Kuan Yew) is
focussed on locating almost total control of the nation in
the hands of a political executive. However Worthington concludes
that the hegemonic project is still unfinished despite the gerrymandered
electoral system. In 1997, 35% of citizens voted against the PAP but
the framework remains Nevertheless, the Singapore political system is
unstable because it rests on a narrow foundation ans is strongly coercive.
To the Singapore core executive control is strength and stability , even
if it is imposed control. The protection of the system means the protection
of the PAP. After all, it knows best, says Goh Chok Tong who told Asiaweek
in 1999: "But you must believe that the PAP knows best. If you don't
believe in that, the we have no business in government"
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Plubocracy
On Lee Kuan Yew himself, the author
says that "the historical role of Lee Kuan Yew in shaping the
political system to conform to his personal desire to rule and his personal
ruling style should not be underestimated." Lee Kuan Yew has said:
"I have spent my whole life-time building this and as long as I am in
charge nobody is going to knock it down"
"The nation has been presided over by one dominant man but
there is no personality cult, although there appears to be exist a
mixture of fear and respect regarding Lee Kuan Yew and his family which
may, perhaps, be now diminishing." Rude commentators like Dr Christopher
Lingle prefer to call the system phobocracy, "rule by fear".As for the
$64 dollar question of the next prime minister, Worthington seems not
to have understood the succession question at all. He writes: "An enduring
problem within the core has been the degree of Goh's genuine independence
from Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong and the question of the latter's possible
succession to Goh Chock Tong"
In October 2003, after the publication of the book, Lee Hsien
Loong, frankly described by the Sunday Times as "leader-in-waiting,
" as if in answer to Worthington's "enduring problem", was reported to
have said that he would keep Goh Chok Tong and his father in the cabinet
to advise him. How did this happen? How does one reconcile the rise
of Lee Hsien Loong with what Lee Kuan Yew told William Safire at Davos
in 1999 after the fall of Soeharto: "I have seen what happened in Indonesia
and I knew it was going to happen to Singapore if I did not prepare
for succession... I couldn't be removed. But if I had institutionalised it
around me it would have collapsed. So I institutionalised it around the office."
After Lee Kuan Yew leaves the scene will Singaporeans cling
on to the legend of Kuan Yew as they do the Rockefeller and Kennedy
and Bush families? Or will there be an active memory in the
Nehru mould, or in the style of Bangladesh obsession with assassinated presidents.
Or will the succession in the Asad or Saddam manner be the preferred
choice? . These and other cases such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the
other ex-Soviet states need to be studied. Certainly Kuan Yew's "institutionalisation"
as descirbed to William Safire will be of no help.
Worthington tells us that Kuan Yew had to apologise
on his son's behalf when Hsien Loong
slapped Dhanabalan at a cabinet meeting in 1990. Who will
apologise after daddy passes from the
scene?#
Governance in Singapore
by Ross Worhington
Curzon Press, London, 2003
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