The greatest threat to tiny Singapore island's survival, the islandwide lack of leadership material

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Tiny Singapore island with no more than perhaps 2 million native born Singaporeans and with perhaps 3 million recently arrived foreigners, the majority, has been ruled since 1959, that is over five decades, in fact during it's entire modern existence, by one man, Lee Kuan Yew who is perhaps 92 years old and by his own confession, dying.

The principal character of his rule over these years is very clear. He never planned on a  democratic government, which the colonial British intended at independence, but a dictatorship under his total control.

To enable this, he ensured throughout his rule he alone wielded supreme power. And to assist him govern, he selected only handpicked professionals and bureaucrats, scholarship students who had passes exams, somewhat similar to the Scholars of the Chinese Ming Dynasty who ran that Chinese Empire.

Firstly, we have blatant and shameless nepotism. He appoints his son Prime Minister and his various other close and distant relatives to top Ministerial positions including Wong Kang Seng and his Senior Minister Goh Chock Tong, not to mention countless others. Not a single Singaporean has any respect for any of them, their positions seen not because of any qualities they may have but because they are connected to Lee Kuan Yew.

A look at his entire cabinet and members of parliament reveals all of them to have been government scholarship students who were sent abroad to Europe and America and upon return required to sign bonded contracts with him to serve his government for a fixed number of years. These scholars are then required to stand for the island elections and promised astronomical salaries upon their winning.

Being nothing but opportunists, naturally they jumped at the opportunity at a career of licking Lee's ass for the huge monetary rewards.

Although no one knows any of them, almost invariably every single one of these handpicked civil servants win the elections which is held every five years, since Lee makes sure they win.

This is done by rigging the elections, by commencing defamation actions and trumped up criminal charges against his real opponents so that they will be disqualified from contesting even before elections even start. Since the ones left would be the thoroughly inadequate ones, 6th grade elementary school bicycle thieves, whom he leaves alone, with no possibility of winning, his selected candidates breeze their way to success.

He not only uses the law to persecute and disqualify election candidates, he uses it to silence and destroy every person with leadership qualities in any walk of life, so as to ensure every single threat to his continued power is removed.

The result of this cleansing and purging of the island of anyone with ideas not like his, leaves the entire island without any leaders at all. His idea of leaders are only those selected by him, unconditionally loyal to him and think like him. Independent thinking leaders do not exist in Lee's tiny Singapore island.

The danger of a society like this, without any leaders, is that it always needs a Lee Kuan Yew like leader, like a Fuhrer or a Messiah to rule over them and tell them what to do. Like a Lee Kuan Yew who says, you listen to me or else! Such a society is incapable of sprouting up leaders to formulate ideas and policies for the rest of society, since anyone with the slightest of leadership qualities is not allowed to exist.

This creates the real worry as to what will happen to tiny Singapore island when their omnipotent all powerful supreme God like leader, 92 year old Lee Kuan Yew who has confessed that he wants to die quickly, kicks the bucket. Unless some other Lee Kuan Yew like leader sprouts up from somewhere, which is impossible, since no such person exists, it is going to look as if the ship SS Singapore is going to float around aimlessly without a captain. What is worse, tiny SS Singapore will begin listing in a few days or months and then promptly sink.

Let me give you some examples. Teo Chee Hean, Lee's deputy prime minister has been making all sorts of speeches and lecturing Singaporeans in the island's state controlled newspapers as to how we should live and what we should do with our lives. You can see his face and read his speeches almost every day ad nausea.

But let let me ask him who the Hell does he think he is anyway? His background shows, as every other single Minister minion of Lee Kuan Yew, he is nothing more than a scholar who passed his exams and was handpicked by his master Lee Kuan Yew for office.

He is not a leader by any means of anyone and he will never be. He is nothing but an opportunist who is licking Lee's boots because it pays well and through corruption; he and his children enjoy large sum of money, benefits, perks and advantages. He is not a leader by any standards. And if Lee Kuan Yew dies, no one is even going to give him a second look, not that they are looking at him now anyway.

It is the same with all of Lee's ministers. Nobody bothers about them now and nobody will bother about them after Lee dies.

And once Lee Kuan Yew dies it is going to be a free for all. There will be no leaders who will be able to garner the support of any single section of Singaporean society. It is inconceivable that anyone would pay any interest to any of these bootlickers.

Unlike respected democratic countries, tiny Singapore does not have any Constitution or any real set of laws that anyone can possibly respect. Lee has done away with all of this.  Just as Lee today, with Lee's passing, no one knows what anyone who seizes control would demand as it is anyone's guess. It will be like today, entirely arbitrary.

This means of course with the island having a mere 2 million or so local born citizens (no one has any exact figure since the press is all state controlled)  and the vast majority of recent immigrants who had no idea of what Singapore is before they were recently given citizenship en mass, even more locals will leave for settlement abroad, the recently arrived foreigners would leave and tiny Singapore would disappear from the South East Asia map.

This is the dire result of a dictator's selfish policies who makes sure that there is no one to challenge him.

Worrying times, I would say. And all this created entirely by a very selfish man who wanted everything for himself and his family, with no care at all as to what happens to his island. Another downright King Leopold the Second in his Congo Free State or Singapore.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com