I wrote the below for Yourself? and have decided to cross-post it here.

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And now, the promised tract on some market imperfections of the Singapore political system, based largely on what I scribbled in a fit of boredom at Range. Are we going to have a full fledged political discussion here? No matter. I tried to keep this short so I won't lose *too* many of you :)

First, there's the issue of GRCs. The official line is that they help minorities be represented, and lead to greater efficiency due to co-operation between town councils. However, the evidence is that Affirmative Action does not work. Why can't minority candidates get into Parliament on their own merit? I am sure that there are many competent minority candidates around - putting them into a GRC team casts doubt on whether they were elected on their own merits. If racial prejudice is still prevalent, then I fear that the attempts to craft a multi-racial society, where we are one united people regardless of race, have failed dismally. Incidentally, the reason why voting along racial lines would mean that no minority candidates enter the legislature is the direct consequence of another government policy - racial quotas for public housing. So one reasonable sounding policy leads to another, but the inevitable conclusion does not sound as plausible as it should.

Extending this argument to majority-ethnicity candidates, and all of them, indeed - every candidate should be elected on his or her own merit. What sort of democracy is this, where those in Parliament aren't really chosen, but were elected in a group? With the GRC system, weaker candidates can be grouped with uber strong ones, and still get it - who would dare contest Tanjong Pagar? Who could even win if he tried? No one would dare go up against the Senior Minster. The GRC system, and in tandem with that the hefty $13,000 deposit required for one to stand for elections, just weakens the ability of small political parties and Independent (Read: most of the opposition) to contest elections. And on co-operation between Town Councils: Town Councils shouldn't be run along party lines, and due to their nature they should be non-partisan.

And then, the issue of gerrymandering. Whither Cheng San, ask I? Suspicious, is it not, that it disappeared after the PAP almost lost it. The broader issue is the independence of the electoral commission. Its non-independence may not mean that it is biased against the opposition, but anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate otherwise. Besides Cheng San, there is also the fact that for the 2001 election, the boundaries and seats were announced on October 24, a mere day before the elections were announced on Oct 25 and just 17 before November 5th's polling.

Then there's the Public Entertainment Licensing Act. Stringent laws govern all sorts of "public entertainment" in Singapore (another issue in and of itself), but for some strange reason, political speeches and events are considered "public entertainment" and thus need a license from the relevant department to carry out their activities. Furthermore, the department has, on many occasions, been tardy in giving approval for functions, and has inexplicably rejected some applications, citing the threat to public "order". The PAP, however, can wriggle through a loophole by going under the auspices of the People's Association.

There is also pork barrel politics. In the 1997 and 2001 elections, this was especially evident, with constituencies being openly threatened that they would not get upgraded if they didn't vote for the PAP. So public money - taxpayer's money, is used for partisan causes. Poor Potong Pasir, old and decrepit, is passed over in favour of newer estates, all for the crime of voting for Chiam See Tong. And the 2001 election came suspiciously close after the announcement of the New Singapore Shares initiative.

The use of libel and defamation lawsuits, with large amount of damages awarded, to ruthlessly and mercilessly smash opposition members against brick walls for the most trivial of matters is also prevalent. I believe that, so far, only Chiam See Tong hasn't been the target of a lawsuit. Admittedly, that is because he is cautious in the extreme, unlike the others. It is known that the Singapore Government has -never- lost in a defamation suit. Ever. And it keeps slapping them on opposition politicians. The connections some judges have with the ruling party does not help matters any, and brings to mind the doubts cast on the credibility of Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minster of Italy, due to numerous conflicts of interest. When Jeyaratnam successfully appealed to the Privy Council to overturn a verdict delivered against him (which said that he had been offered "grievous injustice," and that he and a colleague had been "fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which they were not guilty."), sometime later, the law was altered to disallow appeals to the Privy Council. Besides lawsuits, the government is also fond of casting doubt upon the character and integrity of opposition candidates. Whether the accusations are true or unfounded is not for me to say, not having done enough research on this topic, but while reserving judgment, I still have my doubts.

And then there's the matter of the press. The press is often seen as a tool of the government, as one of its official voices. Indeed, so strong is the perception that Malaysia has, in the past, asked the Government to apologise for things published in the Straits Times that offended it, as if what was written in there was official policy or dogma. The Government doesn't help dispel this perception - it has often touted the Press as a tool for "Nation Building", a most nebulous term. And it has, in the past, chided it for things such as "undermining public trust in the police", when all that was done was that valid questions of police actions were merely asked. Many people who work in and for the press also have government connections - Chua Lee Hoong [who often opines pro-Government views] and one former journalist, for example, used to work for the infamous Internal Security Department (ISD), and many managerial posts are filled by former Civil Servants. Many publications have also been closed by the government - Utusan Melayu (1969), the Nanyang Siang Pau (1983), the Eastern Sun (1971) and the Singapore Herald (1972). Many societies acknowledge the vital role that a free press has in a democratic society, to question relentlessly and encourage transparency, and thus to arrive at the truth. The Government responds that whoever wishes to participate in politics should do so from within the framework of the political process, but the role of the press is unique, really. Ideally non-partisan, it can, with responsible reporting, play a complementary role in a civil society.

Our late former President Ong Teng Cheong, our first Elected President, voiced some of the difficulties he faced in his job. His job was to safeguard the reserves, and so, while in office, he asked for a listing of the reserves. He was told that a full, detailed listing was not available, and even the one he finally got after a few months of dithering was incomplete.

Of course, the anemic showing of the Opposition is not due solely to the PAP's machinations, but also to their own failings. Opposition politicians tend to like showy, flamboyant populist acts, which does discredit them to some extent. The PAP is also adept at snatching up talent, and due to the poor showing of the opposition, most who enter politics gravitate towards the PAP, thus perpetuating a vicious circle.

And now I wait for the men in black suits to take me away :)


More materials available at Singapore Window and the Think Centre.