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Show TRADEOFF BETWEEN POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN SINGAPOREAN DEVELOPMENT Nick Barker ed to eliminate candidates who are not completely dedicated to the state (Clutterbuck 1984, 352). Regardless of this supposed political elitism, many steps were taken in the 1980s to change the structure of political representation in Singapore, or at least provide a fagade of change. In reality, what did these policies accomplish? POLITICAL CHANGES SINCE THE 1980s. One of the first changes was a participatory initiative that allowed for non-constituency members of parliament (NCMPs) with restricted voting rights. This allowed up to six of the highest vote-getting opposition losers in the general election to participate in parliament. This was viewed as an attempt to ease tensions with opposition parties, while showing political tolerance (Rodan 1993, 84). Lee also said that having the NCMPs in parliament provided a means of dodging accusations of government corruption (Quah 1988, 142), because the NCMPs would be the scapegoat for any potential PAP failures. In an important way, this does help democracy: opposition members are at least able to debate in parliament. However, without full voting rights, their input is ignored and their influence is negligible. What is more telling is that such a policy was needed in the first place. The NCMP policy would never have come about if opposition members were actually being elected to parliament. The fact is that they simply aren't. Table 2 PAP Control of Parliament Parliament 63-68 68-72 72-76 76-80 80-84 84-88 88-91 91-96 97-01 01- Total Seats 51 58 65 69 75 79 81 81 83 84 PAP 37 58 65 69 75 77 80 77 81 82 Opposition 14 0 0 0 02 1422 Source: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 2001, pg. 11 Ever since 1968, the PAP has maintained an overwhelming majority in parliament. However, 40 percent of the popular vote consistently goes to opposition candidates (Singapore does not have a proportional representation system, but rather a system of single-member constituency voting districts. This is not facially undemocratic, unless other corrupting influences are at work). NCMPs exist because 40 percent of voters are consistently being denied representation in parliament (Neher 1999, 51). However, they cannot replace actual elected representation. Other measures summarily instituted include: the establishment of the Feedback Unit, a public opinion body designed to channel and address public grievances, in 1985. Town councils were introduced in 1986 to provide greater voice for the public. This was followed in 1987 by the introduction of Government Parliamentary Councils, which were to review policy decisions made by parliament, but basically constituted a PAP rubber stamp for its own policies. All of these changes have the potential to open up and democratize governmental institutions, because they deal with giving a greater voice to the public in the decision making process, thereby increasing freedom of expression (Dahl's 5th criterion) . However, these policies only have an impact if there are elected officials willing to act on this input. If there are no opposition MPs, no one will take action on behalf of the opposition. Conversely, the majority need not give its input because PAP MPs already command a supermajority beholden to no one. Thus, if there does exist any free exchange of ideas, a tyrannical majority makes this exchange pointless. Most significantly, in 1988 the Group Representative Constituency (GRC) replaced Single Member Representative Constituencies (SMRC) in some voting districts, a move that combined 39 former SMRCs into 13 GRCs, each with three representatives that ran on a party ticket (amendments have since raised the number of MPs per GRC to 5-6). This move drew fire as an attempt to dilute the electoral clout of ethnic minorities (especially Malays), even though at least one member of each GRC must be of either Malay or Indian/Tamil descent. According to Lily Zubaidah Rahim, this merely continues the history of political repression of Singapore's Malay community. She notes the development, beginning in 1963, when the PAP started an ambitious urban resettlement plan which "splintered the Malay electoral strongholds by dispersing the Malay community into the newly established public housing estates throughout the island" (Rahim 1998, 74). Through the enforcement of ethnic population quotas, the Malay community remained scattered until the mid-1980s, when they began to congregate once more in the east-coast districts of Bedok and Eunos. This trend gained the PAP's attention in the 1988 election, when the ethnic Malay opposition received 45 percent of the total vote in Bedok, and 49.1 percent in Eunos (Straits Times 1988b). The PAP had two solutions for this: first, establishing housing quotas that prohibited "racial enclaves." The injustice and hypocrisy of this policy is clear: "by this logic, a block which has 87 percent Chinese residents is not a racial enclave but a block which has 26 percent Malay residents is a racial enclave" (Tremewan 1994, 66). The second solution was the aforementioned GRC: predominantly Malay voting districts such as Eunos, Bedok, and Kampong Kembangan were consolidated into three different GRCs, forcing the Chinese community to dilute the electoral strength of the Malay community (Rahim 1998, 78). The question remains, is this democratic? For Schmitter and Karl (1991, 79), "successful democracies tend to qualify the central principle of majority rule in order to protect minority rights," and it is clear that minority rights were violated. Further, "the most common way of protecting minorities... lies in the everyday operation of interest associations 14 |