To what extent is PM Lee Hsien Loong’s government different from his predecessors?

This semester I am taking the module on Government and Politics of Singapore which is a Political Science module. I've got an assignment which is to write this 2000+ words long essay on How different is PM Lee from his predecessors. Just wanna share with u guys. By the way, I got a B+. =)

Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong was appointed as the third prime minister of Singapore since 12 August 2004. A great responsibility was passed on to him to continue what his predecessors have done in Singapore which is providing security and delivering material prosperity for all, regardless of race. Before Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong stepped down as prime minister, speculations were made regarding the government under the soon- to-be Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong , for example, the government under PM Lee Hsien Loong would ensure the continuation of his father’s, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, policies. Chua Beng Huat, a Singapore sociologist, indicated that he did not expect any policy changes, although there was "definitely going to be a style difference". (Kammerer, 2004) However, after four years under the ruling of PM Lee and his government, it seems like PM Lee and his government had made some breakthroughs through the policies and developmental changes made, yet holding on to the core principles which his two predecessors governed Singapore by. Therefore, it can be observed that PM Lee is just adding a twist of flavor in Singapore politics and not yet ready to change the major governing principle which was carried down for decades.

First of all, the style of governance of MM Lee Kuan Yew back then when he was the Prime Minister was basically paternalistic or in other words dictatorship. Many scholars describe his governance as authoritarianism. MM Lee often makes decisions without consultation with the people. (Vasil, 1984) He proudly made statements after statements regarding his success in governing Singapore through his style of governance. Since Mr. Goh Chok Tong took over as the Prime Minister of Singapore, he had develop a new style of governance and declared his government as a “consultative government”. (Mutalib, 2009) During his reigning era as Prime Minister, he has introduced a Feedback Unit in 1985 to get the views and opinions of the citizens in Singapore. Perhaps the most important signal sent by the electorate to the PAP government was that Singaporeans wanted to be consulted and involved in the public policy-making process and to have more control over those decisions that affected their lives directly. Since PM Lee stepped up as Prime Minister until now, we can see that PM Lee and his government’s governing style is more incline towards SM Goh’s way of governance. In other words, PM Lee’s way of governance is more open compared to his father’s way of governance. A clear example is the willingness of the government to set up a blog called the P65 blog which is manned by the People’s Action Party’s Members of Parliament who were born after the year 1965. PM Lee shows much more of his sincerity towards his idea of openness towards Singaporeans which is that Singaporeans should be able to post political videos and campaign material on the Internet without running afoul of the law during the next General Elections. This kind of scenario is a joke under MM Lee Kuan Yew’s government back in his ruling period where MM Lee clearly stated during his speech that if he would govern Singapore without having to consult the people, he is much assured that the government could be even more effective. (Mutalib, 2004)

On PM Lee’s National Day Rally speech, he introduced a “five-day work week” for the public sector, which means that the half-working day on Saturday is ceased from 1 January 2005 onwards. (Tan, 2007) Besides that, PM Lee also proposed a two-month paid maternity leave as well as other financial incentives for new-born’s mothers. (Population) The intention was to encourage Singaporeans to have a more balanced lifestyle as Singaporeans are known to commit too much to their working life. Through these policies, Singaporeans are then able to spend more precious time with their families and also for others to start their own family. The main purpose is to curb the declining population problem in Singapore. These were the few policy changes that took place soon after PM Lee took over which was in line with what SM Goh did when he was the Prime Minister but a total contradict to what MM Lee Kuan Yew did while he was still the acting Prime Minister back in 1975.

Due to the different situation which occurs in Singapore if compared now to the past, the way policies which was made was totally different. During MM Lee Kuan Yew’s reign as the Prime Minister, in the 1960s, the rising birth rates, decreasing mortality rate and immigrations from peninsular Malaysia has resulted in a rapid population growth. (Population) The Singapore government then saw this as a threat to the political stability and living standards of the country. Therefore, the government introduced policies which encouraged later marriage and smaller families accompanied by campaigns urging parents to “Stop at Two”. On the other hand, in the 1980s when SM Goh was the Prime Minister, birth rates decline badly due to the success of the “Stop at Two” policy. This scenario alarms the government of that time. The old family planning slogan of "Stop at Two" was replaced by "Have Three or More, if You Can Afford It." The government under PM Goh took measures to encourage Singaporeans to produce more, such as paying Singaporeans to have children and setting aside $260 million incentives which included the Baby Bonus.

On 18 April 2005, the Singapore government announced about the decision to invest in two Integrated Resorts which is a euphemism for a casino-based development which will be located at Marina South and Sentosa. (Lee Hsien Loong) The objective of this proposal is to gain tourism attraction which will increase job opportunities as well up to 35,000 jobs. This decision is especially significant as the concept of opening casinos in Singapore had been mooted in earlier years, it was rejected by both of PM Lee’s predecessors and even by PM Lee himself when he was the deputy PM, citing reasons such as the presence of casinos in Singapore would bring about much social ills. However, the success of Macau was pertinent in the pressing forward for a good case to revisit the casino resort issue, PM Lee has decided to go against Singapore’s long held taboo and go on with the idea of building casinos despite critics from the citizens, opposition parties and his own ministers. PM Lee suggested that safeguards are to be implemented, such as prohibiting the minor ethnic groups from entering the casinos and charging a SGD$100 entrance fee for Singaporeans and permanent residents or SGD$2000 for a yearlong entrance fee to limit the negative social impact of casino gambling. (Lee Hsien Loong)

Although it may seem like PM Lee and his government are making many new policy changes and the style of governance which might seem as a total contradict to his predecessors, like the development of casinos and also the policy which encourages the population to keep on increasing, the core principle of pragmatism in the style of governance still holds within all three Prime Ministers of Singapore. This brings to the next point which is the similarity of PM Lee Hsien Loong’s government and his predecessors.

Since Mr. Lee Kuan Yew took over as Prime Minister in Singapore in 1959, the government in his cabinet are formed by members of the People’s Action Party, PAP. This trend continues as we can see that the government formed by PM Lee Hsien Loong are still made up of members of the PAP. Therefore, it is very unlikely that the direction of governance by PM Lee’s government will defer much from the previous government as the current government are led by their predecessors from the same party. Hence, the core principles of governing Singapore are being carried down from generation to generation. These core principles include pragmatism, meritocracy, incorruption, multi-culturalism, and having an open economy. To further explain the point of the influence of the previous government on PM Lee’s government is that PM Lee has been working along with them before being promoted to Prime Minister. PM Lee has been involved in various key ministries, such as Trade & Industry, Defence and Finance, acted as the chairman of two important governmental committees and served as a Deputy Prime Minister to his immediate predecessor, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, for a period of 14 years. Aside from that, many of his team ministers served under the leadership of his predecessor as well. It is apparent that PM Lee and some of his team ministers now were also the ones who contributed in formulating policies which was made before PM Lee stepped up as Prime Minister. The rationale behind why there are such major policy changes is because there is a greater demand for democracy from the younger generation and the emergence of young educated Singaporeans who expects more from the government. However, no matter how drastic the policy changes might be, PM Lee is still leading his government according to the same ideology, namely pragmatism. (Mutalib, 2009)

Furthermore, in MM Lee’s and SM Goh’s government back then, there was no more than one woman who has held the position of a minister at any one time to 1998. (Worthington, 2003) Even now in PM Lee’s ruling in the government, there has only been 20% MPs which is made up of women candidate as of year 2007. (AWARE on Women and Work) Even though SM Goh was committed to recruit more women into politics through the Women’s Wing when SM Goh was the Prime Minister, the effort turned out unsuccessful. Some might say that the PAP government had not been giving chances to women to participate in politics but interviews with women who have withdrawn from politics, their remarks is the inability to work together with the PAP government. (Worthington, 2003) In summary, we can conclude that the three generations of the PAP government has few women representative compared to the population of woman in Singapore which is also another similarity between PM Lee’s government and his predecessors.

To understand the government better, the team ministers who formed the government should be taken into account as well. The next point which will be discussed about is the difference between the team ministers which formed the government back in the 50’s compared to the government now in the 21^st century. In the first generation of government which was led by the Prime Minister then Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, all of the team ministers received advanced education in England. (Tilman, 1989)They are made up of inexperienced leaders but with the passion to revive Singapore from the British colonization and the Japanese invasion. Instead, the third generation government under PM Lee Hsien Loong are made up of a younger team excluding MM Lee and SM Goh and the majority of the team ministers are graduated from different universities with excellent academic certification. (Mutalib, 2009) The team ministers are much more experienced in governing the country as many of them have been serving as ministers before being appointed to the current cabinet. An example can be seen in current Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore and Co-ordinating Minister for National Security, Professor S. Jayakumar. Before he is promoted to the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, he has been actively serving in various ministries in the government since 1981. (Cabinet Appointments, 2008) Besides Prof S. Jayakumar, there are also Members of the Parliament (MP) like MM Lee Kuan Yew, SM Goh Chok Tong, Mr. Wong Kan Seng, Mr. Lim Swee Say and a few other MPs who serve for decades in the PAP government. Another notable difference is that during the initial stages of the government led by MM Lee Kuan Yew when he was the Prime Minister, all the team ministers are Chinese except for Mr. Rajaratnam. Whereas, the government formed by PM Lee Hsien Loong comprises of more minorities comparatively to MM Lee’s government, for instance Professor S. Jayakumar, Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Mr. K Shanmugam, and Mr. Vivian Balakrishnan. This reveals that as time passes by, the government has realized the importance of representation of the minorities in the Parliament. This can also be observed through the implementation of the Group Representation Constituencies (GRC).

Conclusion, it should be stressed that the continuity of representation of government by the PAP leaders is the reason why there is still so much similarity in the government now as compared to the previous governments in Singapore. Although there is a difference in the style of governance and the leadership persona in the government, the Singapore government are still continuing the exact long held principles of governance. Besides that, with the existence of MM Lee Kuan Yew and SM Goh Chok Tong in the parliament, it is also very unlikely that PM Lee will somehow govern the country differently to a large extent. Based on what we can observe through his speeches and writings shows that PM Lee and together with his government is leading Singapore with much similarity in the political worldview as his predecessors. Hence, we can conclude that there is much more similarity between PM Lee’s government and his predecessors’ government.

REFERENCES

AWARE on Women and Work. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2009, from AWARE: www.aware.org.sg

Cabinet Appointments. (2008, May 5). Retrieved March 8, 2009, from Singapore Government: http://www.cabinet.gov.sg/CabinetAppointments/

Kammerer, P. (2004, May 4) South China Morning Post.

Lee Hsien Loong. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2009, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hsien_Loong

Mutalib, H. (2004). Parties and Politics: A Study of Opposition Parties and the PAP in Singapore (2nd ed.). Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International.

Mutalib, H. (2009). PM Lee and the Third Generation Leadership: Managing Key Nation-building Challenges.

Population. (n.d.). (U.S. Lbrary of Congress) Retrieved March 10, 2009, from Population, Vital Statistics and Migration: http://countrystudies.us/singapore/14.htm

Tan, K. P. (2007). Singapore's National Day Rally Speech - A Site of Ideological Negotiation. Journal of Contemporary Asia , 37 (3), 292-308.

Tilman, R. O. (1989). The Political Leadership: Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP Team. In K. S. Wheatly, Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore (p. 58). Singapore: ISEAS.

Vasil, R. K. (1984). Governing Singapore (p.159). Selangor, Malaysia: Eastern Universities Press Sdn. Bhd.

Worthington, R. R. (2003). Governance in Singapore. London: Routelage Couzon.