I got a call from the Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris
GRC yesterday. He was intrigued by my last posting which asserted that the last
election results had shown that the roots of a two-party system in Singapore had
been developed.
As with all intellectual discussions with the Young Muslim
Politician, he ended up answering his own question and then it came to the
topic of the quality of opposition candidates. He rightfully observed that the
quality of opposition candidates was exceedingly good. First there was the news
that Professor Paul Tambyah, Chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP),
had been elected to head the US based Society for Infectious Diseases (see - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/paul-tambyah-first-singaporean-infectious-diseases-isid-12847020)
and then came the performance in of the Dr. Jamus Lim of the Worker’s Party
(WP) in the debate against Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, our Minister for Foreign Affairs.
An excerpt of the debate can be found at:
Dr. Balakrishnan is a former school debater and considered
one of our more articulate ministers. The PAP must have been hoping that Dr.
Balakrishnan would wipe the floor in the debate and he did not. Dr. Lim’s
performance in the debate was exemplary. He was articulate and consistently on
message and somehow, that gave the Young Muslim Politician a great moment of
insight, when he told me to look at Dr. Balakrishnan’s expression throughout
the debate. The expression was – this guy should be on our team, why the hell couldn’t
we recruit him.
Apparently, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) had tried
to recruit Dr. Lim when he returned from Abu Dhabi, after serving as an economist
for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which is the third largest Sovereign
Wealth Fund in the world. Apparently, Dr Lim turned the PAP down.
This is a problem for the PAP. Like every good business, political parties need to attract good people, and the PAP used to have a monopoly on the brains. The government’s scholarship system was designed to ensure that smart people stayed within the system. The system worked like this, sponsor a bright kid through to university, get him or her into the civil service for a few years and then, after they had cut their teeth, get them to stand for election.
The Singapore government has been very open about the fact
that it competes with the private sector for talent. Our Ministers are the
world’s highest paid. Political salaries are comparable with those from top
private sector organisations. The
official reasoning is that this prevents corruption (there’s no need to think
about dipping your hands in the cookie jar when you’re being well paid) and that
its necessary to pay well because if we didn’t pay our public figures well,
they’d run off to the private sector and make their fortunes elsewhere instead
of working for the betterment of the nation.
Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim are living proof that
Singapore has the people who can compete on the international stage. The
problem for the ruling party is that they’re not on the side of the PAP, which given
the PAP’s hold on the government, is the only party with the resources to give
them things. If you want money, the PAP is in the position to give it to you.
If you want the backing of the state to get things done, only the PAP can give
it to you.
So, the question that the PAP needs to answer is why aren’t
people like Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim not flocking to join the side of the PAP?
The government has traditionally used the purse strings to attract
people. Personally, I don’t disagree with paying people in public service well.
Why should you expect people to work for some higher ideal if it doesn’t put
food on the table? I know that the guy with the backing of the state machinery
can get things done in a way that the guys protesting on the streets will never
be able to do. Our entire system has been based on this. Whenever a smart guy even
gave the appearance of being interested in joining “the other” (which means any
side other than the government approved one) side, the government and PAP would
inevitably “buy” them over.
Now, there’s a problem. Bright guys are turning them down to
work for the “other” side. These are the people with the expertise needed for
the future. Think about this, we are in the middle of a global pandemic that
has ravaged the economy. Who else could be better to be leading the charge
against these things than a world recognized expert on infectious diseases and
an internationally recognized economist? Yet, these people are not joining.
So, the PAP has to ask itself, why can’t it recruit people
like this. It’s been doing it successfully and suddenly you get flawed
candidates like Ivan Lim. By contrast, the opposition, which lacks the resources
to offer great things is attracting brains like these. The ruling party needs
to do some soul searching on why it has been unable to get great minds like
Professor Tambyah and Dr. Lim instead of trying to demonise the great minds that
won’t join if it is serious about ensuring that Singapore’s machinery has the
best minds working for it.
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