New Elected Presidency for Singapore: Is an update or rethink really needed?

Faster than a speeding bullet, or Minilee's premature constitutional contractions!

As public hearings for the constitutional commission on the changes to Singapore's Elected Presidency continue, so do our analysis to shed light and push back on what may be described as yet another hasty, ill-conceived exercise at constitutional amendment by the long-ruling People's Action Party.

Our previous post establishes the fact that despite the effort of the mainstream press, the proposed changes to the Elected Presidency are not mere updates but radical rethinks of the presidency. For the prime minister to moot the changes in parliament, convene the constitutional commission, call for feedback, let it hold public hearings, compile a report, study it, then craft the bill and allow his cabinet colleagues to sell it in parliament, have three readings of the bill all within the year, Minilee and the national press need to sell the changes as minor, perfunctory, and incremental. Otherwise, the prime minister's constitutional exercise will lose its credibility and it will be difficult to wash off the stench of unholy haste in the proceedings.

New Elected Presidency for Singapore: Update, Rethink, or Clown Show?

In the matter of the changes to the elected presidency, it has taken less than 4 months from Lee Hsien Loong's proposals in his speech at the opening of the 13th parliament of Singapore for us to arrive at the constitutional commission's public hearings at the Supreme Court. And if Minilee has his way, the commission will present its findings by 2016Q3, following which the Prime Minister's Office will likely draft the changes it accepts from the commission, the bill read twice in parliament and passed "within the year", and the presidential election take place with the new rules in 2017, less than 18 months away from now.

Blind men and the elephant: Chua Mui Hoong describes crony capitalism in Singapore

You've probably heard about the blind men and the elephant. In the dominant narrative, the moral of the story one should learn is the limitations to knowledge, how imperfect and incomplete information on the Truth may lead equally wise people to disagree on things. For my readers, I offer a counter narrative. The blind men and the elephant is an allegory for how things look to people who refuse to see what they're looking at.

Rethinking the haze and Indonesia

Tiny and rich Singapore flails comically when it comes to Indonesia and the haze. For all its claims to being a diplomatic giant on the world stage, Singapore fumed helplessly for the last 2 months as forests and peatland burned in Borneo and Sumatra.

It's a smog that gives Peking, Shanghai, and Hong Kong a run for their money. A smog that's more lo-fi, yet more poisonous. And according to both locals and expats, a smog that has more immediate effects on health. More importantly, Singapore's credibility as a vibrant cosmopolitan city and productive financial centre withers each day the haze lingers over its skyline.

Singapore's popcorn democracy

Every election, Singapore becomes popcorn democracy. Just look at its expert panellists.

Modelling the 2015 general election: numbers, outcomes... and theory?

Singaporeans voted on 11 September 2015 and returned the People's Action Party to power with a supermajority and a 9.9% swing in its favour. This was despite 5 years of poor performance by the PAP, where policy and governance failures erupted in the public eye. We at Illusio conduct a postmortem to uncover, from the numbers, if what went wrong for the opposition can be best explained from the voting model we have championed.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general election: theory and outcomes

Singaporeans voted on 11 September 2015 and returned the People's Action Party to government with a supermajority and a 9.9% national swing in its favour. This was despite 5 years of poor performance by the PAP, where policy and governance failures erupted in the public eye. We at Illusio conduct a postmortem to uncover, from first principles, what broadly went wrong for the opposition.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general elections V: Rational voter choices

We at Illusio, having duly considered the facts and circumstances laid before us in the past 5 years and during the rally season, do hereby endorse for the 2015 Singapore general elections...

Modelling the 2015 Singapore General Elections IV: The main opposition

I introduced last week a voting model based on the idea of a dominant party system. Here at the end of the rally season, I've decided to compare the election strategies and positioning of really existing major opposition parties in Singapore against the theoretical model. I also explain why SDP is the comeback kid, why WP can't seem to get out of the kenna hantam mode, and why SingFirst might just surprise everyone in 2 days.

Let's now turn to how the rest of Singapore's opposition parties have waged their campaigns and compare their actual strategies to the predictions in our theoretical model, which I reproduce again here for your convenience.

Singapore Democratic Party, Chee Soon Juan, the Comeback Kid

We previously wrote that the SDP "demonstrates clearly the divergent strategy. It is as liberal as the PAP is centrist or conservative. On the policy front, it challenges most of the PAP's policies". We were right, and the SG2015 Electionaire proves it.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general elections III: The PAP campaign

As expected, the People's Action Party's campaign consisted of silly references to SG50, the Legacy of the party, and playing the LKY card as though every reverent mention of his name could resurrect the man.

And then, there was Minilee's lunchtime rally speech, quoting Papalee's House of Cards speech word for word.

It just doesn't work.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general elections II

Despite expectations, the PAP hasn't run its LKY nostalgia campaign yet.

But did you know the PAP has no viable campaign to run in 2015?

Nomination day observations

PAP supporters arriving at a nomination centre via chartered bus

Picture courtesy of The Online Citizen

Portions of this post were published in an article on The Online Citizen.

Up close and personal, the proceedings of Nomination Day are no less theatrical and farcical than the edited version you watch on television: all sound and fury, with candidates and their supporters behaving as though they were at a pro-wrestling event.

Modelling the 2015 Singapore general election I

How much of a swing in the electorate would the opposition need

to dethrone the PAP in 2015?

In a very accessible article, Jeraldine Phneah writes about the advantages the People's Action Party has over the opposition in Singapore. Note that several of the advantages are institutional and arise from the PAP's position as the dominant party in Singapore politics.

In PolSci speak, Singapore belongs to a subset of democracies that are called dominant party states: these are countries whose political landscape are overwhelmingly dominated by a single ruling party, often for decades. As it turns out, a phenomenon like the PAP is not that unique to history or politics. And as it turns out, phenomena like the PAP do come and go.

Living with Myths X: Singaporean words and images

Being a review of the final in a long, year-long series of seminars

Singapore's Literary Myths

Is a national literature a reflection of national ideology?
Is the development of a national literature a reflection of competing national ideologies?
Who gets a say?
Which question did Gwee Li Sui ask, and answer?

PAP upgrades its own Upgrading Carrot

 
Uniquely Singapore inception

Minilee is expected to dissolve parliament some time after the NDRS. Nevertheless, campaign season has already begun: the opposition has resolved its coalition talks to great success, and all parties have begun unveiling their candidates.

Trust the PAP to trot out more upgrading carrots. They've already begun in Sembawang, Tanjong Pagar, Jalan Besar, and Bishan-Toa Payoh. Presumably, some MPs did not got the party memo, which upgrades the HDB upgrading carrot into the GRC master plan carrot (see media reports on Tanjong Pagar and Jalan Besar).

Conversation with the Prime Minister: Just a conversation?

How Minilee thought he'd appear on TV last night:
as an FDR conducting a folksy fireside chat

Living with Myths IX: Cultural medallions, poverty, histories

Being a review of the 9th in a year-long series of seminars

Poor people don't like oats either

Teo You Yenn is a sociologist who studies Singapore's social welfare ecosystem. What happens after the cabinet fixes a policy stand on social welfare? How does policy get enacted by ministries, semi-government bodies, and social organisation? What does social welfare look like when it is delivered to the poor?

Living with myths: Singapore pastoral

Taiwan Review has published a few excerpts from Loh Kah Seng's new book, Squatters into Citizens. Followers of the Living with Myths reviews on this blog may remember the good doctor had based his presentation in Living with Myths VI on his new book.

Back then, we noted that sociologist Chua Beng Huat (an outspoken critic of the establishment for the past 30 years) took Loh to task for mythologising life in Singapore's rural kampungs and squatter settlements as ideal, free, and noble—and levelled the charge of academic irresponsibility at Loh.

Because Loh had presented a new myth: the Singapore pastoral.

Life by the River by Liu Kang

The Apothesosis of Lee Kuan Yew VI

From Republic of Singapore to Republic of Nanyang

In the midst of the political purges of Singapore’s early post-independence years, the PAP government ditched its race-blind Singaporean Singapore ideals, subverted its own image of multiculturalism, appropriated key social and cultural policies of the Chinese cultural elites and absorbed them into the civil service as a form of political accommodation. This resulted in the sinification (whether intended or not) of Singapore by 1980. The mandarins and the political leaders of Singapore would then embark on even more ambitious schemes that would put the nation on the map as a Third China.

"Singapore is a Chinese country what", say just about every Chinese immigrant here

The Apotheosis of Lee Kuan Yew V

To boldly go...

It is possible to typify the leadership of early Singapore and the PAP as a triumvirate consisting of Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and S Rajaratnam. The first was a political man of action who wielded charisma, power, and authority to get people to comply with the national plan. The second was the technocrat who made sure every aspect of the plan was sound. The third was the ideologue, the voice of wisdom put a human touch to the plan.

Star Trek's holy trinity

In this way, the PAP early leadership serves the same archetypical functions that J Michael Straczynski sees Kirk, Spock, and Bones fulfilling in the Star Trek narrative: the Warrior, the Priest, the Doctor.