Singapore island needs a new operating manuel

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A student of Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore would know that the island is run, not by it's Constitution which is officially in the books, but through a system which Lee Kuan Yew, the 90 year old ruler had devised himself which is something like this.

You choose students who have done well in school, give them scholarships at government expense at overseas universities and upon return field them at elections where they invariably win because the political opponent has been removed through defamation lawsuits. From that point, paid about $5 million a year each, they will speak at the parliament as if they were all leaders chosen by their people and demanding obedience of them.

This is exactly the system that governed Imperial China (minus the need for defamation lawsuits) where the Emperor chose bright students who passed exams to rule over their subjects with absolute power, being only accountable to the Emperor or in Singapore's case, to Lee Kuan Yew. And just like in ancient China, these scholar rulers remained in power as long as the Emperor approved, and not by any vote of their subjects.

The idea of Parliamentary elections based on the modern concept of democracy are completely ignored. The concept of modern parliamentary democracy of leaders naturally emerging from among the people who vied for the people's vote for office in free and fair elections is not the practice in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.

This made elections in Singapore, held every 5 years, a big fraud.

In the last 2011 elections the foreign media has made a big thing of the fact that as much as 40% voted for the opposition Workers Party. But little do they know that a vote for the Workers Party is as good as a vote for the government party because they are in office to dupe the people into thinking they are truly opposition.

They are in fact working for the interests of Lee's Peoples Action Party. History clearly shows that if indeed anyone in the Workers Party truly stood for a change of government, they would all by now have suffered the same fate that the late JB Jeyaretnam suffered through repeated libel actions, jail and bankruptcy. The very fact that none of this has happened to any of them is ample proof as to who they really are.

Except for formerly bankrupted and jailed Chee Soon Juan and a handful of others there are no real opposition politicians. They have all been intimidated or silenced or have fled the island. It is simply too risky to be an opposition politician in Lee Kuan Yew's island.

But while Lee had devised his own system of choosing leaders, it is not what the Constitution demands; in fact all of this is simply unconstitutional. These elections are simply a fraud upon the people, because these hand-picked "leaders" cannot justify their positions under any legal instrument in the law.

Politics has gone on in Lee Kuan Yew's island by his unique style of political selection for the last 52 years but the question is what will happen when the 90 year old leader dies?

How is his son whom he placed as Prime Minister going to justify this practice of selecting his own candidates and make sure they win through  defamation actions against opponents like his father did.

Is he going to assume that he could simply do exactly what his father did without any resistance from Singaporeans?  And will the Singapore electorate simply accept it lying down?

I have serious doubts if political business can go on the same way it has gone on so far. As you can see, the whole thing is a charade, a farce, a theater and simply nonsense.

The Lees should either come out in the open and amend the Constitution to reflect what is going on by admitting that the island's political leaders are not selected by any elections, but by Lee Kuan Yew or his son.

They should also amend the Constitution to remove any reference to a multi party system of government and state that there is only one political party that can rule Singapore, and that is their own party, the Peoples Action Party.

This way the people will know exactly what the deal is, and Lee Kuan Yew and Son would not have to continue with this disgusting make-believe by insisting ad nauseum that Singapore is a democracy when we all know it is not, and have the courage to officially state what it really is, a one party totalitarian police state. At least that is more honorable than the disgraceful charade they carry on each day with their people by proclaiming they are something else they are not.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com