Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas

by Han Fook Kwang

  (Speech to civil servants, June 14, 1962, on page 362)

  The more pressing concern of peoples in developing countries was for improvements to their lives. Democracy and other liberal ideals could wait. In short, what they wanted was not so much liberal democratic government, but simply good government.

  But just what constituted good government? To Lee, it was clear that this would vary from society to society and over time.

  “All peoples of all countries need good government. A country must first have economic development, then democracy may follow. With a few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. Democracy has not led to development because the governments did not establish the stability and discipline necessary for development. What is good government? This depends on the values of a people. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual.

  “As an Asian of Chinese cultural background, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient in protecting its people, and allowing opportunities for all to advance themselves in a stable and orderly society, where they can live a good life and raise their children to do better than themselves.”

  (Address at Asahi Forum, November 20, 1992; text on page 376)

  Apart from noting the inherent difficulties of applying the democratic system in developing societies, or those where the social and cultural conditions underpinning the society did not exist, he also spent much time pondering just how the system could be adapted to make it work in these societies. How could the system be modified to make it work more effectively in the developed societies as well where, he contended, it was failing to deliver the goods?

  One idea he floated was a return to the system of restricting the vote to those who were in a better position to exercise it wisely. Given his way, he would have assigned the vote, or additional votes, to those who contributed most, economically, in a society. They, after all, were the ones who generated wealth, paid taxes and kept governments in operation. They were the ones who would have to bear the burden of costly government initiatives. Why should they not have more say over who formed the government?

  “How do people get a good government in a developing country? I believe we can learn a valuable lesson from the property and educational qualifications the UK and the US had in their early stages of democracy. This can work well in the towns where most people are educated. Moreover it will encourage people to get educated. In the rural areas, the educated are fewer. So more traditional methods of representation, like the village headman or chief, can be the basis of representation. Such an approach can be criticised as elitist, but the chances of getting a good government will be better.”

  (Address at Asahi Forum, November 20, 1992; text on page 376)

  He elaborated on the idea in an interview with the authors.

  “If you have a general vote, it cannot work. In fact, the general vote is not working in America today. They want entitlements, but they don’t want to pay taxes. Does that make sense? It’s not working in Britain. They don’t want to pay more for fuel, but they want the health service to improve. Well, where does the revenue come from? Or in France. So much social support for workers. If you want jobs, you must lower the minimum wage. But the students went on strike. You say, okay students, you can ignore minimum wage.

  “How do you work it? The system is malfunctioning at present in Britain, America, France and for some time even in Germany. They wanted reunification, but they didn’t want to pay more taxes. And German Chancellor Helmut Kohl made the mistake of saying ‘you don’t have to pay more taxes’. He started borrowing from the money market. So interest rates rose and caused a recession throughout Europe.

  “I would restrict the vote to the level of your contribution to the economy. If you are making no contribution to the economy, you are in no position to demand all this. Who makes what contribution? The British and the Americans built up their infrastructure and their capital in the years when they had the restricted vote. They did not have universal suffrage until late in this century. In America, not until ’65, when they had the blacks registered in large numbers. In Britain, married women did not get votes and become equal until 1948 or so. That’s when they cancelled the extra university seats. University graduates had extra votes. If you were a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, you could vote for an extra MP. That system worked.

  “But there was pressure, not from the masses but from liberal thinkers, who thought this unfair. Let’s all be equal, when we are not equal and do not make equal contributions.”

  Some men, more votes

  To Lee, this quest for equality was a chimera, for it was manifestly clear that men were not equal. Nor was their contribution to society. Modelling the system on the pious hope that one could assume away these differences was to invite trouble, he argued.

  Applying this argument to Singapore, he tossed up for discussion the idea that the voting system in Singapore be modified in 15 to 20 years’ time to reflect the contributions of younger working voters with families. Looking ahead, he worried that the rapidly ageing population in Singapore would pose a problem for future governments, which might come under pressure from a growing elderly lobby to spend increasing amounts on pensions, health care and other benefits for them. This, however, would have to be financed by taxing the younger workers, who might chafe at the punitive taxes that would have to be imposed on them.

  “The old are not going to die so early. They’re going to live till their late 70s, 80s. They will need care, help, food, medicine. Medical science will keep them alive. This CPF [Central Provident Fund] minimum sum will not meet those needs. They would have gone on holiday and spent much of it. And two, three hundred dollars a month, how can that meet all the nursing care and medicine and other institutional support? So they will vote for people who will promise all this.

  “Who will pay? The young who are working pay taxes. Those who are not working are not paying taxes. If you tax the young too heavily, they will migrate.

  “In Britain, thousands of brilliant professionals have migrated. Doctors by the thousands. Numbers equal to half the annual intake of doctors every year. Those who are at the top of the profession leave for America. Then Britain took in doctors from India and Pakistan to make up for the migration. How can you have a good system? In our circumstance, if we don’t watch out, they will also leave. Then what happens? The system cannot produce.

  Lee’s election rallies at Fullerton Square were legendary. He and his audience braved downpours during the rallies, when he would speak, off the cuff, for hours, spelling out his hopes, fears and dreams for the country.

  “I’ve been thinking about this for many years – how to make the system work, how to make it representative but not so skewed so that it becomes unworkable …”

  To him, the need to change the electoral system was not a question of principle but a practical one of having to adapt it so that it continued to serve the interest of society. In 1994, he proposed a change to the system to be made sometime in the future:

  “It is not necessary to change our system at present. But, later, we may have to give more weighting to the people whose views should carry more weight because their contributions are greater, and their responsibilities are greater; in which case, we should consider giving those between the ages of 35 and 60, married and with families, one extra vote. Their contribution to the economy and to society is greatest at this stage of life. Also, they need to vote for themselves and also for their children. Their children have an interest that needs to be protected. Once past 60, their children would have grown up, and would vote for themselves. Then the parents should drop back to one vote. But during those critical years, 35–60, people who carry twice as much responsibility should have two votes. This will make for a more viable system and a more stable society.

  “It is not going to satisfy the purists, who believe th
at big or small, all contributors to society should have one vote. But at the end of the day, we need a system that works, that enables representative government to function in an effective way.”

  (Interview with Singapore reporters, May 8, 1994; extracts on page 384)

  But this was not the first time that he had proposed radical changes to Singapore’s constitution and electoral system. Indeed, over the years, he introduced several innovative modifications to the parliamentary system to adapt it to the country’s peculiar circumstances. He amended the constitution to provide for several MPs to be elected in teams, with each including a minority candidate. This was to ensure that Singapore’s minority races were represented in Parliament.

  “We used to have certain constituencies where the Malays were the majority of the voters. Now we face a fundamental problem after we resettled them. Do we rebuild these areas and rehouse Malays in these areas so that they will still be the majority, or do we expose and scatter them like the Chinese and Indians – ballot for their neighbours?

  “Well, the Malay MPs thought it over. We decided, in the long term, it’s better that we mix everybody up. So we did. No constituency has more than 30 per cent Malays as the ceiling. The result, a tremendous pressure to find Malay candidates who can fight against a Chinese candidate and still win.

  “That’s quite a problem because the electorate has changed. A young electorate is no longer interested about the party having a balanced slate. They’ve never faced a riotous situation where people run amok and butcher, kill, maim each other because they are berserk. Now there’s no such situation.”

  (Interview with journalists, October 9, 1984)

  Want an opposition? Split the PAP into two...

  Lee has toyed with the idea of splitting his own People’s Action Party into two, with a more liberal wing to rival the conservative wing of the party. This, he believed, was the most likely way to bring about a stable two-party system in Singapore, given that the existing opposition parties were, in his view, not up to the task.

  But, on balance, he concluded that it was better to keep the party intact, given the small and limited talent pool in the country. The PAP, he argued, would remain the mainstream party, commanding the political centre-ground, and scouring the country for talent to co-opt into its ranks. This made it virtually synonymous with the Establishment in the Republic. Opposition parties would play a role on the fringes to keep the ruling party on its toes, by offering the people a choice at election time, as well as by throwing up alternative ideas.

  “The way to bring it about, if it were wise to do so, would be to have the People’s Action Party divide into two wings. Then both wings are committed to certain basic and fundamental rocks on which the society will rest and can argue about peripherals – whether more should not be spent for social security or a more liberal view taken – liberal with a big ‘L’ – of how we spend our money in tempering the harshness of meritocracy and open competition, whether we don’t give a little more padding to those who can’t quite make it to the middle ranges or income brackets.

  “That’s theoretical ideal. Then the voter can switch sides without prejudicing the system. But to put this into practice in Singapore requires splitting the PAP – an extremely radical step. I don’t suppose I will do it because it’s not wise to ask a segment of the party, say, ‘Look, you go form the opposition. Get out of office.’ I don’t know if my successors will. I think it’s an unnecessary hazard because there are enough schisms in the society as it is. It’s not something you can cement over – differences of race, Chinese, Malays, Indians, and different kinds of Chinese, and different kinds of Indians, and different kinds of Malays. They are real. They are abiding. And we’ve done a lot to make it more uniform or less stark a contrast. But if you are discerning and you go to a housing estate, they all look the same, but you can see that they lead slightly different lives.

  “So with these kinds of deep, underlying, almost primeval urges, I don’t really see a Whig-Tory seesaw, tossing power back and forth.”

  In 1984, in a surprising move which would have been unthinkable in most other countries, where parties are locked in a keen contest for seats, Lee introduced a scheme to give away parliamentary seats to several opposition candidates who had been defeated in the elections. The aim: to enable Singaporeans, especially a younger generation of voters, to “learn the limits of what a constitutional opposition can do”. The new crop of government ministers would also gain from having sparring partners in the House.

  “When my senior Cabinet colleagues and I look back at our early hectic years of governing Singapore, we realise how much we have benefited from having gone through a very hard school. We met street thugs. Had we not become streetwise, we would have been clobbered. Like dogs which are closeted in a bungalow behind fences, we would have been run over when exposed to treacherous traffic. From our perilous years in the ’50s and ’60s, a whole generation of Singaporeans, now all over 40 years old, were educated in a harsh political school. They were wise to the ways of an irresponsible opposition and did not vote for any in four successive general elections. They need no further lessons.”

  (Parliamentary speech, July 24, 1984)

  Critics dismissed this as an attempt to thwart the rise of genuine opposition parties and candidates, since voters might be persuaded that they could vote PAP and still have opposition MPs in the House. Lee was not perturbed. For him it was a matter of course that the democratic system would have to be adapted to suit the country’s needs.

  “I have told my younger colleagues a long time ago that we should not make unnecessary changes to the constitution, but that they have to look ahead and keep in mind that no constitution can stay unchanged for all time. The nature of society will change, the external environment that Singapore faces will change, and we have to change. If you want one-man-one-vote or representative government to succeed, from time to time, you will have to adjust your system to make it more viable, and less volatile.”

  (Interview with Singapore reporters, May 8, 1994; extracts on page 384)

  An Asian alternative?

  For Lee then, democracy was not an end in itself. Unlike Western champions of the liberal democratic system, who regarded the right to freedom and democracy almost as a birthright, he believed that there was nothing inevitable about the system. Nor, left to their own devices, were Asian societies likely to evolve such a system similar to that in the West. These countries had had the system bequeathed to them. It was left to Lee and other leaders in these states to find ways to work the system, modifying it along the way. At the end of the day, he believed, what mattered most was not what form the system took, but whether it worked to improve the lives of the people.

  He summed up this view in a conversation with Foreign Affairs managing editor Fareed Zakaria in 1994. When asked by Fareed what he thought was wrong with the American political system, he replied, “It is not my business to tell people what is wrong with their system. It is my business to tell people not to foist their system indiscriminately on societies in which it will not work.”

  Opposition: Yes, but what kind?

  Opposition players in Singapore – (from top, left to right) Chiam See Tong from the Singapore People’s Party, Ling How Doong and Cheo Chai Chen from the Singapore Democratic Party, and Low Thia Khiang and J.B. Jeyaretnam from the Workers’ Party.

  Despite the hard line he took with opposition figures in Singapore, Lee was to say often that he was not against the idea of a parliamentary opposition. A good opposition could offer government ministers useful sparring partners, sharpen their skills and keep them on their toes.

  But while acknowledging that there were merits to having an opposition, he would contend that those who aspired to the job in Singapore were not up to it. Worse, instead of contributing to the debates on policy, they often served to undermine the system by casting aspersions on its key institutions, such as the judiciary and civil service. Lee would force them to back up
their constant charge that the judiciary in Singapore was “pliant” and under the influence of the executive, despite the judiciary being rated by foreign observers, such as the World Economic Forum, as one of the most efficient and least corrupt in Asia. Time and again, they proved unable to do so. Lee had little time for such an opposition.

  “The PAP is not an ideological party – not ‘either you believe in this or you’re out’. No, we’ll take all good minds who are honest and sincere about doing a job for the people. We’ll argue, ‘Look, these are the circumstances, these are the facts, what can we do?”

  “Take Chee Soon Juan [Singapore Democratic Party leader]. If he is not exposed, that man will do harm. He’s capable of doing harm.

  “We didn’t go for Chiam See Tong [Singapore Democratic Party founder, now with Singapore People’s Party]. We don’t have to. Cheo Chai Chen and Ling How Doong [both of the SDP], we have not. Low Thia Khiang [Workers’ Party], we have not gunned for him. He keeps within a certain framework. He’s playing politics. He goes on this cost of living committee, he knows he’s in the wrong, that the figures are correct. But he still will not admit it. That’s okay, he is not actively trying to undermine the system. He looks after his constituency, he attends every wake, every marriage – well, good luck to him. Can you run a country on that basis? But if you are a troublemaker, in the sense that you will do Singapore no good, it’s our job to politically destroy you.

  “Put it this way. As long as Jeyaretnam [Workers’ Party leader] stands for what he stands for – a thoroughly destructive force – we will knock him. There are two ways of playing this. One, you attack the policies; two, you attack the system. Jeyaretnam was attacking the system, he brought the Chief Justice into it. If I want to fix you, do I need the Chief Justice to fix you? Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac. That’s the way I had to survive in the past. That’s the way the communists tackled me. He brought the Chief Justice into the political arena.