http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_406704.html
Balanced governance model
By Aaron Low
What would not work, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed, is to simply rely on the simplistic approach that 'if you develop, you will need democracy. --ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN
SINGAPORE'S model of governance is one that tries to achieve a balance between delivering quality leadership and giving people the opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction with Government policies, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
It is a system that has worked well and one that has not let the people of Singapore down, he told a German newspaper.
'How do you keep a system which delivers an outstanding quality of leadership and government, and yet at the same time, have free play and the opportunity for people to say, 'I want this government, but I do not like this policy or the other'?'
The ideal system, he said, balances both. It delivers a good government, while providing for aspirations to be fulfilled and voices - the full range of them - to be articulated.
'This is the ideal,' he said in an interview published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on July 14.
The newspaper wanted to know if Singapore would become 'even more democratic' in future, as it had recently relaxed its rules on public assemblies and was introducing changes to the political system to enable more opposition voices in Parliament.
In his reply, Mr Lee said Singapore, like other countries, is feeling its way forward in establishing a system that works best for it.
What would not work, he stressed, is to simply rely on the simplistic approach that 'if you develop, you will need democracy.'
Singapore did not believe in the Western liberal democratic model which developed in the last half-century as 'the pinnacle of human achievement and the solution for the whole of the world', he said.
He cited the case of Indonesia and how in 1997, the International Monetary Fund wanted to change the system of governance there.
Read the full report in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.
Balanced governance model
By Aaron Low
What would not work, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed, is to simply rely on the simplistic approach that 'if you develop, you will need democracy. --ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN
SINGAPORE'S model of governance is one that tries to achieve a balance between delivering quality leadership and giving people the opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction with Government policies, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
It is a system that has worked well and one that has not let the people of Singapore down, he told a German newspaper.
'How do you keep a system which delivers an outstanding quality of leadership and government, and yet at the same time, have free play and the opportunity for people to say, 'I want this government, but I do not like this policy or the other'?'
The ideal system, he said, balances both. It delivers a good government, while providing for aspirations to be fulfilled and voices - the full range of them - to be articulated.
'This is the ideal,' he said in an interview published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on July 14.
The newspaper wanted to know if Singapore would become 'even more democratic' in future, as it had recently relaxed its rules on public assemblies and was introducing changes to the political system to enable more opposition voices in Parliament.
In his reply, Mr Lee said Singapore, like other countries, is feeling its way forward in establishing a system that works best for it.
What would not work, he stressed, is to simply rely on the simplistic approach that 'if you develop, you will need democracy.'
Singapore did not believe in the Western liberal democratic model which developed in the last half-century as 'the pinnacle of human achievement and the solution for the whole of the world', he said.
He cited the case of Indonesia and how in 1997, the International Monetary Fund wanted to change the system of governance there.
Read the full report in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.
