Careful evolution of political system is S’pore’s way forward

Singapore has developed a political system that has served the nation well, and this is done by carefully evolving the system and learning from experience to suit the Republic’s changing needs and circumstances, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament yesterday, as he announced that the Constitution will be amended for some changes to be made to the political system. In explaining how Singapore has to find its own way instead of blindly copying the practices of other countries, Mr Lee also recounted how founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had told the House in 1984 that constitutions have to be custom-made like a suit — tailored to suit the peculiarities of the person wearing it — and are like shoes, which fit better the older they become. “It is better to stretch and ease an old shoe when we know that the different shape and fit of a younger generation requires a change,” Prime Minister Lee cited his late father as saying. Below is an excerpt from the Prime Minister’s speech.

In theory, to get their politics right shouldn’t be such a difficult problem for most countries, because of some sense of identity. Leaders and their followers of different political persuasions should be able to come together to work for the common good. It makes sense to work together. It is a lot of trouble if you are at odds with one another. But as you look around the world, in fact, it is not such a simple matter.

Some countries face division and gridlock, and the government gets paralysed, like the United States. The executive and the legislative branches are controlled by different parties. The government is stalemated on issues ranging from gun control to trade policy.

Three years ago, in 2013, the Federal Government had to shut down for 16 days because Republicans and Democrats in Congress could not agree on a budget. Last year, they nearly had to shut down again.

In President Obama’s recent State of the Union address, he spoke about this — how the founders had distributed power between states and branches of government, that means between the federal government and the different states, and introduced checks and balances. They expected people to argue, as they themselves did, but eventually to find common ground and work something out. But now the basic bonds of trust between the major parties, between the Democrats and the Republicans, have totally broken down. There is rancour and suspicion, and no willingness to compromise. And the system desperately needs to be fixed, but no congressman, no senator, not even the president is able, on their own, to put it right. That’s the US, the most powerful country in the world.

Other countries too have seen their national consensus fray. Many European countries were governed by stable, centrist coalitions. Sometimes they have a centre-right coalition that would govern for a while; other times, the centre-left.

But now, with the economy broken and the immigration crisis, deep disenchantment has set in. Extreme left and right groups are gaining ground — Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, AfD in Germany, the National Front in France, UKIP in Britain — pushing anti-immigrant and anti-EU (European Union) platforms, expressing angst and anger, reflecting public unhappiness. But they are also riling up the public, offering no coherent policies or viable alternatives.

In many Asian countries, whom you vote for depends on your race, depends on your religion; in some countries, depends on what caste you belong to. It’s not policies, it’s not integrity. And there has been no lessening of these divides even decades after independence. These are fundamental divides — divides which countries have tried to close, but which remain deep and sometimes have even deepened decades after independence.

Systems without elections have their own difficulties, for example the PRC (People’s Republic of China). It’s a major challenge for President Xi Jinping to keep his system clean and officials accountable. Chinese officials visiting Singapore invariably ask to see our MPS (Meet-the-People Session) and they try to go back and do the same. Not the same. What is the fundamental difference?

In Singapore, MPs (Members of Parliament) and ministers are taking cases for their voters. A person sitting in front of you votes for or against you, come election time. But it is difficult for them to achieve the same outcome because PRC officials are not directly elected. In Singapore, MPs take up MPS cases to solve their voters’ problems, but in China, the officials are not elected by the population they are responsible for.

The moral of the story: There is no perfect model anywhere in the world, much less one that we can import wholesale and apply in Singapore. If you look at other countries, we do not feel any schadenfreude, any sense of superiority or rejoicing. In fact, we say: “If not for the grace of God go I.”

The political problems we see in other countries can occur here too, if we blindly copy their practices. It doesn’t mean we do nothing. It doesn’t mean we learn nothing. We have to keep evolving our system carefully, step by step, making sure Government works and our political system serves our people’s interests. We have to find our own way forward.

OLD SHOES WORK BETTER

We have evolved our system of politics over the years and it has served us well. Our political and constitutional history is quite different from other young countries’.

Most newly independent countries start life anew with a brand new, freshly-minted Constitution. But when we became independent, we didn’t do that. We decided to retain and to tweak the existing constitutional arrangements that had worked for Singapore when we were part of Malaysia, and that had been working before that, when we were a self-governing state, when we joined Malaysia.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew felt that it was better to evolve our model gradually, learning from experience, rather than to strive for some unworkable perfection. Mr Lee said that his best teacher of the difference between political reality and constitutional theory was the Tunku (Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s first Prime Minister).

Once, he wrote — I think it was in his memoirs — Mr Lee was in the Tunku’s office, admiring a beautiful leather-bound green-covered volume, the Pakistani Constitution, presented to the Tunku by Ayub Khan, at one time the President of Pakistan. Mr Lee admired the book. The Tunku told him: “You know, Kuan Yew, they make very good Constitutions. They have many brilliant lawyers. With every leader, they have to make a new one.” So when we became independent, we cobbled together the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore.

Where did it come from? Part of the provisions from Singapore’s State Constitution, part of the provisions from Malaysia’s Federal Constitution, plus amendments made after Separation. It was a rojak.

It was such a messy Constitution that in 1970 Mr Lee asked the British High Commissioner to get British Constitutional law experts to polish it up. It came back polished and shiny. Mr Lee thought the British experts had done a first-rate job. But in the end, he decided not to take in the amendments, because he concluded the experts had not understood the context, nor why we had made certain basic decisions. He explained this to the House in 1984, when he moved the Constitutional Amendments to create the NCMP (Non-Constituency Member of Parliament) scheme. And he used Thomas Jefferson’s analogy of a suit.

He said: “From my experience, Constitutions have to be custom-made, tailored to suit the peculiarities of the person wearing the suit. Perhaps, like shoes, the older they are, the better they fit. Stretch them, soften them, resole them, repair them. They are always better than a brand new pair of shoes.

“Our people have got used to and understand the present system. It takes a long time ... Any fundamental change takes a long time. But most important of all, the Constitution works. Many countries have tried and gone through several Constitutions since independence ... They have not brought stability or legitimacy. I believe it is better to stretch and ease an old shoe when we know that the different shape and fit of a younger generation requires a change.”

Like many of Mr Lee’s speeches, this speech made in 1984 in this House, or the old Parliament House, is still well worth reading, more than 30 years later. The Sunday Times published an excerpt. I encourage you to read it, and I urge Members to read the full version in the Hansard.

Apart from talking about Singapore politics, he gave a tour of the horizon, of how historically other countries — Britain, France and America — have all got their own histories. The approach which we have taken was to evolve our political system as we go along, learning from experience, stretching and easing the old shoe.

We don’t sit in a semi-circle. For example, we inherited a first-past-the-post parliamentary system modelled on the British House of Commons in Westminster. We kept that system but subsequently introduced new institutions — NCMP, NMP (Nominated Member of Parliament), the GRC (Group Representation Constituency), and an institution of an elected President — each institution with a purpose, each one in line with our principles. And let me say something about them.

As Mr Lee Kuan Yew would have said, this is now a shoe that we have worn for 25 years. We have mended and adjusted it from time to time. It has generally fitted well. Yet we need to continue to review and adjust the scheme from time to time, to keep it functional and in good repair.

A SYSTEM FOR THE FUTURE

Singapore has had a good 50 years, because we have had good policies and good politics. Despite unpromising conditions at Separation, we have developed a political system that has worked well for us, and evolved it carefully along the way, to suit our changing needs and circumstances, in light of our growing experience.

But our responsibility is not only to make our political system work today, but to ensure that it works for the longer term. Nobody can predict the future and how our needs will change. If our system is to serve future generations well, then it is our responsibility to keep it up to date — regularly recalibrated, adjusted and improved, while preserving the principles it was built upon.

In raising this major issue now, my aim is to strengthen our system to make it more open and contestable, and to keep it accountable to the people. It has to be a system where all political parties, and especially the PAP (People’s Action Party), have to fight hard, stay lean and responsive to people, and win the right to govern at each election, where Parliament will always be the place to debate and decide important policies, where alternative views always have a place, where the Opposition will never be shut out, and the Government will be held to account, so that the Government of the day — whoever that may be — is always kept on its toes.

We must not assume that future Governments, PAP or otherwise, will never falter. In fact, it is not possible for any political system to guarantee a country political stability and prosperity. But we can make such a happy outcome more likely if we design our political system carefully and correctly around our core principles: Ensuring a high-quality Government; keeping politics open and contestable; maintaining government accountability; upholding a multiracial society; instituting in and refining stabilisers and checks-and-balances in the system.

In 50 years’ time, most of us will not be around. We do not know what Singapore will be like, or whether the PAP will still be the Government. But we can and must help Singapore build a political system that will give us the best shot at prosperity and progress, a system that future generations can continue to improve and adapt to meet their future needs, so that future Governments will be able to work with the citizens of Singapore, to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our people.

Speech taken from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s Facebook page