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Nov 25, 2008
MULTI-PARTY POLITICS
Case yet to be made
I REFER to Dr Tan Wu Meng's letter last Friday, 'Why Singapore's political system works', and the follow-ups on Saturday, 'Logic favours two-party system' and 'Governments better off with checks and balances'.
I am pleased that Dr Tan's letter generated strongly worded responses. But I was disappointed that they focused on one side of the argument - the benefits multi-party debate could bring to a political system - while failing to tackle many of his arguments.
One argument was that competition in the political arena could influence decision-making in the direction of effective policy. We have, however, seen in democracy after democracy that competitive elections reward skilful demagogues rather than effective policymakers, simply because success in elections comes from winning votes rather than good policy. Because of this misalignment of incentives, the informational advantage of competition is often lost - a point made by Dr Tan but unaddressed in the responses. It is hard to argue, for example, that the American system of checks and balances has resulted in more effective policymaking. I am hard pressed to think of an example of recent major legislation that was passed in the face of vigorous debate without being fatally crippled in the process.
Another point was that, having made the transition to a developed country, Singapore no longer needs a strong hand at the helm. This argument was not well fleshed out. One could argue, instead, that as Singapore enters ever-more-turbulent waters, the need for coordination and rapid adaptation in policymaking becomes ever more critical and requires, more than ever, strong leadership (perhaps with some loss of innovation in political ideas). Experience may arguably not count for much in such crises, but strong leadership does. And, in most cases, countries which successfully navigated such waters did so under uncontested leadership rather than in the midst of vigorous political debate.
There was no attempt to address Dr Tan's point that 'were this accumulated wisdom and concentration of talent to be dispersed across multiple parties, Singapore would be the poorer for it'. This claim that Singapore does not have a deep enough talent pool to sustain multiple parties, questionable or not, deserves to be addressed.
An effective response to Dr Tan must account for both costs and benefits of multi-party politics and argue why one side outweighs the other - in particular, why Singapore can harness such political competition to generate better policymaking while avoiding the attendant costs, when many other countries are unable to do so.
Li Hongyi
Nov 25, 2008
MULTI-PARTY POLITICS
Case yet to be made
I REFER to Dr Tan Wu Meng's letter last Friday, 'Why Singapore's political system works', and the follow-ups on Saturday, 'Logic favours two-party system' and 'Governments better off with checks and balances'.
I am pleased that Dr Tan's letter generated strongly worded responses. But I was disappointed that they focused on one side of the argument - the benefits multi-party debate could bring to a political system - while failing to tackle many of his arguments.
One argument was that competition in the political arena could influence decision-making in the direction of effective policy. We have, however, seen in democracy after democracy that competitive elections reward skilful demagogues rather than effective policymakers, simply because success in elections comes from winning votes rather than good policy. Because of this misalignment of incentives, the informational advantage of competition is often lost - a point made by Dr Tan but unaddressed in the responses. It is hard to argue, for example, that the American system of checks and balances has resulted in more effective policymaking. I am hard pressed to think of an example of recent major legislation that was passed in the face of vigorous debate without being fatally crippled in the process.
Another point was that, having made the transition to a developed country, Singapore no longer needs a strong hand at the helm. This argument was not well fleshed out. One could argue, instead, that as Singapore enters ever-more-turbulent waters, the need for coordination and rapid adaptation in policymaking becomes ever more critical and requires, more than ever, strong leadership (perhaps with some loss of innovation in political ideas). Experience may arguably not count for much in such crises, but strong leadership does. And, in most cases, countries which successfully navigated such waters did so under uncontested leadership rather than in the midst of vigorous political debate.
There was no attempt to address Dr Tan's point that 'were this accumulated wisdom and concentration of talent to be dispersed across multiple parties, Singapore would be the poorer for it'. This claim that Singapore does not have a deep enough talent pool to sustain multiple parties, questionable or not, deserves to be addressed.
An effective response to Dr Tan must account for both costs and benefits of multi-party politics and argue why one side outweighs the other - in particular, why Singapore can harness such political competition to generate better policymaking while avoiding the attendant costs, when many other countries are unable to do so.
Li Hongyi
