One government, two styles

The following commentary was published in The Straits Times on November 20, 1994.

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The debate on higher ministerial salaries is over, and the White Paper making the case for them passed, but the heat generated is still around.

The issue was a particularly contentious one for several reasons. Firstly, being directly concerned with money, it had an immediacy and urgency all its own.

Incredulity and anger quickly became statistical: “four times the salary of the President of the United States”; one month’s salary equivalent to 10 years’ savings of the average working person” and so on.

Secondly, the issue gave an astonishing new definition to Singapore leadership, based on a precise measure of monetary worth.

The vocabulary of Singapore politics has been effectively purged of the language of idealism with the result that words such as “nobility”, “altruism” and “service” will now no longer have much meaning.

It is a chilling thought that in the writing of future history books, the date of the passing of the White Paper will draw a precise line of demarcation separating the old leadership of Singapore, motivated by raw guts, nerve and passion, from the new leadership motivated by the opulence of a lifestyle equal to that of the top company executives in the country.

Thirdly, the issue smacked of a certain flagrancy. Unpopular but necessary decisions that the PAP government finds itself having to make from time to time have involved some measure of sacrifice for all Singaporeans, for example, GST and COEs.

But this is the first time that a so-called difficult decision benefits only the decision-makers, and in the most spectacular way. For the Government to convince Singaporeans that the decision is for their good in the long run when it makes its own ministers millionaires in the short run, will be painfully awkward.

PAP sympathisers must feel sorry that the intense atmospherics of the debate obscured the existence of a very real problem and the urgent need to solve it quickly.

Even the assurance from the Government that the scheme would be monitored over a period and reviewed if necessary did nothing to lessen the intensity of the reaction.

As is usual when major issues are discussed, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, i n his capacity as watchdog, adviser, mentor and, increasingly, interventionist, came in to help pull it through and, in the process, give Singaporeans a stern lecture on how the new worldly materialism of the times, so far removed from the old missionary fire, had left him with no choice but to put forward this proposal of a new calculus of leadership.

Mr Lee’s immense stature, based not only on a remarkable record of dynamic and creative leadership through the various traumas of Singapore’s history, but also on a passionate commitment to the nation, singularly free from all personal or cultist motives, ensured that the debate was closed effectively.

But not even the Senior Minister’s tremendous influence can prevent the people’s emotions from continuing to express themselves in the ready channels of coffeeshop talk. The fear is that they may be souring the ground enough to threaten a significant loss of votes in elections to come.

To many concerned Singaporeans, the issue is symptomatic of a much larger problem – the growing alienation of the people by the Goh Chok Tong Government.

It seems to confirm an increasing fear that the consultative, consensual approach which the Government had promised and by which it had wanted to be distinctively defined is being abandoned in favour of the authoritarian style of its predecessors.

Of late, the voice has become sterner, the stand harder.

Whether in response to the new pressures of a fiercely competitive world moving rapidly towards the 21st century, or to a realisation that the old governing style which had seen Singapore through its worst times would be the best to see it through its newest challenges, the Goh Government is certainly sending out clear signals to Singaporeans on its change of style.

It is a reflection of Singaporeans’ sensitivity to these signals that the NUSS management committee, for instance, decided to withdraw a publication on the chance that some of its articles might offend the Government. Self-censorship of this kind is deeply disturbing.

The present government stance is most dismaying to those Singaporeans who remember that not too long ago, the Goh administration was launched upon the brightest of hopes, the most heartening promise of a judicious blend of old and new.

The old PAP Government was handing over the reins of leadership to a team of younger men, in the full awareness that the PAP style of stern authoritarianism was less suited to the mood and needs of a younger generation of Singaporeans.

Accordingly, the new team, led by Mr Goh, chose a totally different approach , best summed up in the borrowed slogan of a “gentler, wiser society”, and the affirmation of an open, more tolerant climate.

But the difference would be in style only: The new leaders would be solidly committed to the proven PAP values of efficiency, integrity and dedication. The transition would be marked not only by ease but also grace: the Old Guard would still be there to lend advice and guidance.

Over the years, a pattern of governance has emerged that is not exactly what was envisaged. Increasingly, the promised Goh style of people-orientation is being subsumed under the old style of top-down decisions.

Some of these are perceived as lacking in sensitivity and caring, such as th e decision to deny single mothers the right to own government-subsidised flats on the argument that to do otherwise would encourage the immorality of single motherhood.

The gentler, wiser voice is seldom heard now, is indeed receding into total silence. Whence this retreat of a promise?

Part of the explanation must lie in the continuing influence of the Senior Minister, a colossus on the Singapore political scene who overshadows every one else.

The huge respect that Mr Lee has built up, both at home and internationally, means that not only the substance of his advice but also the very tones and textures of his style will be attended to.

Given his fierce commitment to the nation he built up, shaped and protected over three decades (who can forget that touching promise he once made about springing up from his coffin, if necessary, to intervene on Singapore’s behalf?) and given Mr Goh’s natural respect for and deference to age and authority, it is not surprising that into its fifth year, the Goh Government is still unable to assume fully the distinctive identity it had set out as its goal.

A framework that tries to accommodate two different styles must soon suffer internal stresses and strains.

Singaporeans can only speculate about the extent of these tensions through what both the Senior Minister and the Prime Minister choose to say publicly.

Thus, with characteristic forthrightness, Mr Lee sometimes makes a public appraisal of the Goh government (which some observers jocularly refer to as “Goh’s report cards”) and, it must be added ruefully, has never given it a straight A.

Indeed, some years ago, the Senior Minister revealed to an astonished audience that he would have much preferred Dr Tony Tan as Prime Minister.

The recent rating in Parliament was, happily, much higher, but it was qualified by the sobering observation: The younger leaders, because they had come mainly from the public sector, tend to think alike and lack the boldness and creativity of the old PAP team.

It was precisely to correct this defect of leadership that Mr Lee had suggested the increase in ministers’ salaries, in order to attract the more dynamic minds from the private sector, to build up a corps of the “political entrepreneurs” Singapore so sorely needs.

On his part, Mr Goh lets drop a gentle reminder occasionally that although h e continues to consult Mr Lee, he is the man in charge. By way of stressing his point, he likes to use analogies, on one occasion of a football team where he is the striker.

However, the most recent comparison is less assertive though more engaging i n its warm domesticity: Singapore is like a family in which the Senior Minister is Stern Father and he is Oldest Brother, presumably in a mediatory capacity.

This uneasy counterpointing of two different styles cannot be a good thing, if only because it necessarily results in an attenuation of both, since neither is able to have full expression.

The restrained exasperation detectable in Mr Lee’s impassioned speech in Parliament must be that of a man who wonders why he has to keep playing an interventionist role to put things right or to get things moving, as in his recent push for Singapore business to sprout an external wing.

And the Prime Minister’s quiet restraint with regard to less acceptable proposals such as polygamy to solve the problem of a declining population and a one-man-two-votes system to solve the problem of irresponsible voting, must be that of a man who waits patiently for the full unfolding of his own style.

Above all, this co-existence of opposite styles must mean an attitudinal polarisation within the Government itself, with some adopting the stern, no-nonsense, preemptive approach, and others a gentler, more conciliatory one.

The prevailing perception of the Government as “arrogant” and “high hand-ed”

is the most persuasive evidence of the former dom-inating the latter, and the final retreat of Mr Goh’s earlier ideals.

It has led to a serious emotive estrangement between the Government and the people, which I had discussed in an earlier article.

It is significant that the criticism of “arrogance” has never been levelled at the Senior Minister or any of the Old Guard.

Their immense contributions, often at great personal cost, have earned them not only the respect but also the grateful regard of the people who will consequently accept any amount of severe lecturing and scolding from them.

The hectoring style fits in with the special personality and authoritative stature of Mr Lee, but when it is copied by the young leaders, it is immediately seen as presumptuous and provokes resentment.

The two-styles-in-one-government pattern will, at the least, send conflictin g and confusing signals to the people and, at the worst, cause a widening of the “Great Affective Divide”.

By itself, the estrangement may be no more than a discomfiture that both sides can live with, but there is the very real possibility that it could have a major impact at the polls.

The one consoling thought, for both the Government and concerned Singaporeans, is that when it comes to the crunch, people know on which side their bread is buttered and will vote with their heads.

But the heart is a dangerously volatile and unpredictable instrument and no one can say at what precise point it takes over from the head.

The concerned Singaporeans would like to see this possibility averted, and therefore view with anxiety a growing swell of disaffection that concentrates spitefully on grievances and forgets the substantial improvement which the PAP government has made in the lives of the people.

Some of the confidence and trust may be restored by a return to the earlier promise of a gracious, caring society. In countries still struggling to secure the basics of a reasonable standard of living, that promise might sound puerile and had better be replaced by grim concentration on hard economics.

But in Singapore, at this stage of its development, the humanistic dimension is a necessary outcrop of material achievement, to bring about the consummate society that is both prosperous and gracious, for which Mr Goh has sometimes wistfully mentioned Switzerland as the closest model.

The foundation for such a society has already been laid, deriving a particular strength from Mr Goh’s humane, gentle style on the one hand, and the solid legacy of efficiency, discipline and dynamism bequeathed by the old dispensation, on the other.

It is a unique conjunction, in the nation’s history, of two dispensations, different but complementary, providing the society with the best possible circumstances for a take-off into the next century.

This must have been the model envisaged at the changing-of-the-guard – the new built firmly on the old, and not in uneasy tension with it.

In a continuing process of engagement between the Government and the people that will be encouraged by a climate of openness and tolerance, there will be the expected share of rude shocks and losses.

But there will also be the pleasant surprises of unexpected skills never before tested and of the gains from new and higher levels of understanding and cooperation that invariably come with full, open engagement.

Best of all, because the process is based on trust and therefore entirely spontaneous, it will represent the true maturing of Singapore. Singapore politics will truly have come into its own.