TR EMERITUS

OPINION

Malaysian constitutional law expert Abdul Aziz Bari sparked a furore lately for likening the state of “lawlessness” in Malaysia to that in Zimbabwe which was echoed by former Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim.

In an interview with Malaysiakini, Zaid said:

“Nothing will change unless those who know rise up to expose the vermin (that are) eating and destroying our national institutions and democratic values.”

If Abdul Aziz or Zaid , both lawyers by profession, had repeated the same remarks in Singapore, they would probably be sued for defaming the government and disbarred with their careers destroyed.

Besides no former Law Minister in Singapore will ever dare to criticize the system after being “retired” with a plume job in some government-linked companies to keep their mouths shut.

In a way, Singapore bears a closer resemblance to Zimbabwe than Malaysia is under the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and we are not talking about the economic but the political situation in these two countries.

Of course in terms of economic progress, Singapore is way ahead of Zimbabwe and Malaysia, but our archaic, obsolete and repressive political system is not too far behind Zimbabwe.

In fact, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe  should learn from Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on the art of masquerading a dictatorship as a “democracy” without incurring the wrath of the free world.

By and large, Mr Mugabe is shunned by the international community for being a despot. His ruling party is nothing more than a band of thugs who resort to harrassment, intimidation and even murders to silence the opposition.

On the other hand, Lee is no less a despot than Mr Mugabe, but he is welcomed by the international community everywhere he goes. Even President Obama granted him a rare audience at the White House lately though he is officially not the leader of Singapore.

The opposition is allowed to exist in Singapore provided it stays “constructive” (a Singapore euphemism for “doing nothing”) most of time and avoid crossing the path of Lee in the event of which they will be fixed, arrested and bankrupted till they “fall on bended knees and beg for mercy.”

The effectiveness of both methods is clear for all to see: Mr Mugabe’s rule is wobbling towards the end of his reign and he had to share power with his adversary in order to maintain his grip on power.

Lee does not have to concede any ground to Singapore’s non-existent opposition. Still being revered by some as the “founding father” of Singapore, he can win a free and fair election easily hands down anytime.

But Lee is not merely interested in winning elections, he wants an “overwhelming” mandate which means winning all the seats in parliament and if not, losing no more than two in the exising opposition wards.

Lee’s ruling PAP has won 10 consecutive elections from 1959 till 2006, a feat not seen or achieved in any other democracies in the world.

Of course one can argue that Singapore isn’t a democracy to begin with, but the fact remains that relatively free elections are conducted on a regular basis and though there are rampant gerry-mandering and unscrupulous practices such as the use of the state media to discredit and demolish the opposition, there were few complaints of fraud or vote-buying.

Now back to Malaysia – it may not be as developed as Singapore economically, its GDP per capita is much lower than ours and it ranks a pathetic 56th position by Transparency International compared to Singapore’s position as the 3rd least corrupt nation in the world and yet its people enjoy more political freedom than Singaporeans.

The Malaysian Bar Association can criticize the government freely and protest against decisions made by the Chief Justice without any repercussions.

The Singapore Law Society is muzzled by a law which disallows it to comment on legislation and policies unless its opinion is specifically sought after by the government.

Singapore lawyers are expected to toe the official line. Few would dare to go against the Chief Justice or Attorney-General openly. A former Singapore citizen Gopalan Nair questioned a decision made by then Attorney General Tan Boon Teck in the 1980s and was disbarred for two years.

The Malaysian opposition can lambast the Prime Minister openly without being sued for defamation. Democratic Action Party (DAP)’s Tony Pua, who slammed PM Najib recently over his GST proposal would have been bankrupted a long time ago had he been in Singapore.

Another voracious critic Lim Kit Siang, who hammered the government relentlessly would probably be detained under the Internal Security Act by the PAP and exiled elsewhere like Singapore’s former Solicitor-General Francis Seow, once Lee’s blue-eyed boy who had fallen out with him.

For all his diatribes against Dr Mahathir, Badawi and Najib, Lim should consider himself fortunate that he is still able to speak his mind relatively freely in Malaysia. Lee would never tolerate such public show of dissent against him.

The irony is: DAP was an offshoot of the PAP, regrouped from the Malaysian branch of the PAP after Singapore was booted unceremoniously out of Malaysia in 1965.

The three opposition MPs in Singapore’s parliament are largely ineffectual and dare not challenge the ruling party. When asked point-blank by PM Lee last year if Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng should resign over the escape of terrorist Mas Selamat, opposition MP Low Thia Kiang was stunned into silence, earning him the nickname “Silent Low” among netizens.

Low could possibly be more vocal in Malaysia, but not in Singapore where a single wrong word may cause him to lose not only his MP seat, but his entire fortune as well which was what happened to his mentor, the late J.B. Jeyaretnam.

To be fair, we cannot blame Lee or the PAP completely for the state of political freedom in Singapore. It takes two hands to clap and Singaporeans have to shoulder part of the responsibility as well.

The Barisan Nasional is no less repressive than the PAP, but the Malaysians dare to go against it to express their displeasure publicly.

The anti-ISA protest held in August this year was supposed to be illegal, yet 30,000 concerned Malaysians still turned up in the streets to show their support which helped raised public awareness of the issue. Did the police arrest all 30,000 “illegal” protestors? They arrested only a few leaders and they are still not charged to this very day.

As a result of public pressure, the Barisan Nasional is forced to “review” the ISA and it will be less inclined to use it on political dissenters and opponents in the future out of fear of incurring the wrath of the people.

A similar “protest” against the ISA in Singapore held at Speaker’s Corner in May this year attracted only a motley crowd of less than 30, the same few opposition members and activists. If you ask 100 Singaporeans in the street, probably only two or three are aware of the existence of the ISA.

The political ignorance, apathy and inactivity of Singaporeans is the greatest obstacle to genuine political progress in Singapore.

Most Singaporeans are too obsessed with the pursuit of material possessions and comforts in life that they fail to realize that it is impossible to have economic rights without political rights first.

Singaporeans slog hard day in and out for their entire lives just to earn enough money to pay for inflated public housing after which they are probably left with little money for their retirement.

Worse still, they may find themselves being retrenched and replaced in the prime of their lives by some foreign “talent” who is more “hard-driving” as according to the words of Lee.

Singaporeans have no choice but to live a perpetually stressful life dictated to them by the ruling party because they are not aware of the fact that as citizens, they have certain rights and privileges and if the ruling party cannot safeguard their interests, they can always boot it out of office and find a replacement which is more amendable to their requests.

Without political rights, Singaporeans are like lambs waiting to be slaughtered, forever at the mercy of the dominant PAP which controls every aspect of their lives from cradle to grave.

While it looks increasingly likely that Malaysians will vote out the incumbent by the next election, Singaporeans will probably be stuck with the PAP for the new few decades.

After all, our “forecaster extraordinarie” Lee did make a bold prediction not too long ago that the PAP will remain in power for the next two terms at the very least.

PAP members and supporters reading this article will surely challenge the author to leave for Malaysia if he is so disenchanted with Singapore, but he is a Singaporean by birth and he has every right to demand changes in the way his nation is being governed for the sake of his children’s future.

(The author is proud of Singapore and being a Singaporean. What he abhors is the way the ruling party has been manipulating and ruining the lives of ordinary citizens in order to serve its own selfish partisan interest. Singapore is much larger than the PAP itself!)

He wants a Singapore where everybody has a stake in, not just one controlled by the ruling party and its close associates or worse, a particular family using the ruling party as a legitimate political vehicle to perpetuate “dynastic” rule.

Some Malaysian Chinese consider themselves as “second class” citizens in Malaysia, but true blue Singapore Chinese are becoming “second class” citizens in Singapore too.

In a recent interview with National Geographic magazine, Lee Kuan Yew was quoted as saying:

“Over time, Singaporeans have become less hard-driving and hard-striving. This is why it is a good thing that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants…..If native Singaporeans are falling behind because the spurs are not stuck into the hide, that is their problem.”

As the ruling party continues to embark on its massive PR branding exercise to showcase Singapore as the “Switzerland” of Southeast Asia, the unsavory truth is that it is probably closer to being the “Zimbabwe” of Southeast Asia.

(Myanmar doesn’t count as it is officially a military dictatorship while both Singapore and Zimbabwe are still “democracies” in name. Zimbabwe also conducts regular elections which are always won by Mugabe’s party with overwhelming majorities like the PAP.)

Freedom-loving nations in the world should stop appeasing the Singapore dictatorship and start speaking up against it by exposing its spins, fallacies and hypocrises.

The late South Korean President Kim Dae Jung once rubbished Lee’s “Asian values” as a “lame excuse for dictatorship”. The leaders of other democratic nations should emulate him and not be afraid of “calling a spade a spade”.

The Singapore system is a menace to the free world, more dangerous than Zimbabwe, Myanmar and North Korea now that the ruling parties of Russia and China are studying its model and adopting some of its undemocratic practices to entrench themselves in power under the guise of democracy, thereby corrupting its good name.

Singapore’s one-party state-capitalist autocracy may survive and prosper for a while, but as history has shown, it will seldom outlast the dictator and his successor and will never become a viable alternative to a democratic system based on the rule of law, clear separation of powers between the executive and legislative and power in the hands of the people.

Copyright © 2009 · All Rights Reserved · The Temasek Review

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