A Malay dilemma
Sunday, 26 April 2009, 12:08 pm | 228 views
Why the PAP struggles to renew its class of Malay leaders
The issue of race has always been a dicey one in Singapore politics, stemming partly from the heavy historical baggage of race riots and Singapore’s unanticipated separation from Malaysia. The official approach has to try to minimise debate on such sensitive matters while emphasising the government’s successes in its nation-building efforts.
Even so, the prime minister’s Cabinet reshuffle of 26th March has triggered some consternation in the Malay community, which was picked up by the vernacular press and even acknowledged by the prime minister. No Malay politician was promoted in the reshuffle; in fact, one – Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed – made way in the Northeast district for a Chinese mayor, though he retained his position as senior minister of state in the foreign ministry. More significantly, what the reshuffle seemed to have shown was that none of the Malay leaders appeared to be closing in on a key post such as deputy premier or at the helm of defence and foreign ministries.
On the surface though, there were outward shows of support: the Berita Harian, the country’s leading Malay paper, commented on 28th March about the efficient nature of the reshuffle and carried letters of support from the public. Yet that may mask a deeper anxiety: the same commentary expressed belief that the day would come when there would be a Malay deputy prime minister, though it also noted that the US took over 200 years to produce a black president. Perhaps the unspoken point was that the chances of having a Malay prime minister in Singapore were even more remote.
Another commentary in the Berita Harian by Maarof Salleh on 3rd April was more telling. Mr Maarof observed that the reshuffle had raised questions in the community about whether the present Malay leaders in the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) had the requisite quality for national leadership. For example, there was apparently disappointment that senior parliamentary secretary of education Masagos Zulkifli had failed to advance while his counterparts who were similarly elected in 2006 surged ahead to become acting ministers and ministers of state; there were even worries about the existence of a quota for Malay MPs. In the longer run, Mr Maarof argued, such perceptions may discourage Malays from even joining politics.
There might be some justification for such worries. For one, there is usually some anxiety in the community about being under-represented in government, particularly when compared with the smaller Indian community: the speaker, along with a senior minister of state, two senior parliamentary secretaries, one parliamentary secretary and a mayor are Malay, but these are all arguably portfolios with limited clout compared with the Indian community, which occupies the presidency, along with a senior minister and three ministers in the Cabinet.
Furthermore, the prospects of any Malay politician occupying one of the key posts in Cabinet do not appear particularly positive. For example, it seems unlikely that environment minister Yaacob Ibrahim, the community’s sole representative in the Cabinet, will advance much further. At this point it is also hard to imagine the crop of younger Malay politicians (which includes Mr Masagos) doing any better than merely replacing Dr Yaacob at their current rate of advancement – they seem unlikely to bag anther Cabinet post, particularly since the last time the community had two ministers was before ex-environment minister Dr Ahmad Mattar retired in the mid-1990s. It might be similarly difficult to replace the current speaker – which is the next most important position held by the Malays – who is probably due to retire soon.
The obvious disconnect
The ruling party is no doubt aware of the Malay community’s dissatisfaction: fielding a question about why no Malay politicians were promoted in the reshuffle, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assured the press that the current crop of Malay MPs will be advanced if they “measure up”, but alluded to the party’s recruitment difficulties when he stressed that he was “personally focused” on attracting Malay professional into politics. That is clearly a problem: if the PAP is having difficulty getting Chinese and Indians to join the party, it is finding it even harder to induct Malay recruits. That said, it is a problem faced by the opposition as well: at the last election, the biggest opposition party, the Worker’s Party, fielded mostly candidates with professional backgrounds and tertiary qualifications, something that its Malay candidates conspicuously lacked. But it is the PAP who should be the natural receptacle for Malay political talent, given its record in improving the community’s standards of living, its efforts to accommodate the community’s sensitivities and the overwhelmingly Chinese and Indian character of opposition movements in Singapore.
But that does not appear to be the case. One difficulty with trying to recruit Malay professionals is that the pool is relatively small compared with the other ethnic groups – the 2000 census indicated that only 2% of the community attained tertiary qualifications, compared with 16.5% and 12.6% of the Indians and Chinese respectively. Moreover, anecdotal evidence suggests that the profile of Malay graduates might tend towards being more liberal and less religious. Those are traits that the conservative PAP leadership could find unacceptable, particularly when, unlike the Chinese or Indians, Malay politicians are often seen as Muslim leaders as well. Dr Yaacob, for example, is also the Minister of Muslim affairs; Mr Zainul had served previously as president of the Islamic Council of Singapore.
Furthermore, the PAP’s target pool of recruits might not be that inclined towards joining the party anyway. For example, Mr Nizam Idris, an economist whom the PAP tried to recruit in 2006, told the press in a recent interview that he had turned the PAP down partly because he “could not live with” the requisite “cheerleading” that was expected of PAP MPs, implying that he did not want to be in a party that demanded strict conformity with the official line. In this regard the party’s innate conservatism might be turning off those with a more liberal bent and who might not share its values, which are likely to be those in the PAP’s target pool of recruits. The situation would also not be helped by perceptions that Malay politicians can’t seem to advance to the top posts in the Cabinet.
More disconcertingly, there might also be perceptions that political engagement seems to be increasingly on the terms of the dominant ethnic group. For instance, Berita Harian’s commentary of 28th March expressed hope that Singapore could develop a team of Malay leaders who were fluent in Mandarin; on the same day it reported Dr Yaacob’s comments that the Malay community had to accept newcomers who neither spoke Malay nor knew the local culture. That might not be something that younger generation of Malay graduates are entirely comfortable with.
It therefore seems likely that the PAP will continue to struggle to renew its class of Malay leaders, though this is helped by the fact that other political parties are probably faring even worse. Still, this is somewhat ironic for a party that first came to power in the 1950s and 1960s with the help of some critical support from the Malay community – one article has highlighted the important role played by the progressive Malay nationalists and trade unionists in the PAP’s rise, particularly during the pre-merger and merger periods1. The PAP may find that it needs such support again to offset disaffection from other quarters should it decide to make good on its hints about calling for snap polls in the current economic gloom.
***
1 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Winning and losing Malay support, 1950s and 1960s”, Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-war Singapore (Singapore, NUS Press: 2008), pp. 95-115. Dr Lily Zubaidah was also the author of the “The Singapore Dilemma”, a book on the alleged marginalisation of Malays in Singapore
Sunday, 26 April 2009, 12:08 pm | 228 views
Why the PAP struggles to renew its class of Malay leaders
The issue of race has always been a dicey one in Singapore politics, stemming partly from the heavy historical baggage of race riots and Singapore’s unanticipated separation from Malaysia. The official approach has to try to minimise debate on such sensitive matters while emphasising the government’s successes in its nation-building efforts.
Even so, the prime minister’s Cabinet reshuffle of 26th March has triggered some consternation in the Malay community, which was picked up by the vernacular press and even acknowledged by the prime minister. No Malay politician was promoted in the reshuffle; in fact, one – Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed – made way in the Northeast district for a Chinese mayor, though he retained his position as senior minister of state in the foreign ministry. More significantly, what the reshuffle seemed to have shown was that none of the Malay leaders appeared to be closing in on a key post such as deputy premier or at the helm of defence and foreign ministries.
On the surface though, there were outward shows of support: the Berita Harian, the country’s leading Malay paper, commented on 28th March about the efficient nature of the reshuffle and carried letters of support from the public. Yet that may mask a deeper anxiety: the same commentary expressed belief that the day would come when there would be a Malay deputy prime minister, though it also noted that the US took over 200 years to produce a black president. Perhaps the unspoken point was that the chances of having a Malay prime minister in Singapore were even more remote.
Another commentary in the Berita Harian by Maarof Salleh on 3rd April was more telling. Mr Maarof observed that the reshuffle had raised questions in the community about whether the present Malay leaders in the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) had the requisite quality for national leadership. For example, there was apparently disappointment that senior parliamentary secretary of education Masagos Zulkifli had failed to advance while his counterparts who were similarly elected in 2006 surged ahead to become acting ministers and ministers of state; there were even worries about the existence of a quota for Malay MPs. In the longer run, Mr Maarof argued, such perceptions may discourage Malays from even joining politics.
There might be some justification for such worries. For one, there is usually some anxiety in the community about being under-represented in government, particularly when compared with the smaller Indian community: the speaker, along with a senior minister of state, two senior parliamentary secretaries, one parliamentary secretary and a mayor are Malay, but these are all arguably portfolios with limited clout compared with the Indian community, which occupies the presidency, along with a senior minister and three ministers in the Cabinet.
Furthermore, the prospects of any Malay politician occupying one of the key posts in Cabinet do not appear particularly positive. For example, it seems unlikely that environment minister Yaacob Ibrahim, the community’s sole representative in the Cabinet, will advance much further. At this point it is also hard to imagine the crop of younger Malay politicians (which includes Mr Masagos) doing any better than merely replacing Dr Yaacob at their current rate of advancement – they seem unlikely to bag anther Cabinet post, particularly since the last time the community had two ministers was before ex-environment minister Dr Ahmad Mattar retired in the mid-1990s. It might be similarly difficult to replace the current speaker – which is the next most important position held by the Malays – who is probably due to retire soon.
The obvious disconnect
The ruling party is no doubt aware of the Malay community’s dissatisfaction: fielding a question about why no Malay politicians were promoted in the reshuffle, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assured the press that the current crop of Malay MPs will be advanced if they “measure up”, but alluded to the party’s recruitment difficulties when he stressed that he was “personally focused” on attracting Malay professional into politics. That is clearly a problem: if the PAP is having difficulty getting Chinese and Indians to join the party, it is finding it even harder to induct Malay recruits. That said, it is a problem faced by the opposition as well: at the last election, the biggest opposition party, the Worker’s Party, fielded mostly candidates with professional backgrounds and tertiary qualifications, something that its Malay candidates conspicuously lacked. But it is the PAP who should be the natural receptacle for Malay political talent, given its record in improving the community’s standards of living, its efforts to accommodate the community’s sensitivities and the overwhelmingly Chinese and Indian character of opposition movements in Singapore.
But that does not appear to be the case. One difficulty with trying to recruit Malay professionals is that the pool is relatively small compared with the other ethnic groups – the 2000 census indicated that only 2% of the community attained tertiary qualifications, compared with 16.5% and 12.6% of the Indians and Chinese respectively. Moreover, anecdotal evidence suggests that the profile of Malay graduates might tend towards being more liberal and less religious. Those are traits that the conservative PAP leadership could find unacceptable, particularly when, unlike the Chinese or Indians, Malay politicians are often seen as Muslim leaders as well. Dr Yaacob, for example, is also the Minister of Muslim affairs; Mr Zainul had served previously as president of the Islamic Council of Singapore.
Furthermore, the PAP’s target pool of recruits might not be that inclined towards joining the party anyway. For example, Mr Nizam Idris, an economist whom the PAP tried to recruit in 2006, told the press in a recent interview that he had turned the PAP down partly because he “could not live with” the requisite “cheerleading” that was expected of PAP MPs, implying that he did not want to be in a party that demanded strict conformity with the official line. In this regard the party’s innate conservatism might be turning off those with a more liberal bent and who might not share its values, which are likely to be those in the PAP’s target pool of recruits. The situation would also not be helped by perceptions that Malay politicians can’t seem to advance to the top posts in the Cabinet.
More disconcertingly, there might also be perceptions that political engagement seems to be increasingly on the terms of the dominant ethnic group. For instance, Berita Harian’s commentary of 28th March expressed hope that Singapore could develop a team of Malay leaders who were fluent in Mandarin; on the same day it reported Dr Yaacob’s comments that the Malay community had to accept newcomers who neither spoke Malay nor knew the local culture. That might not be something that younger generation of Malay graduates are entirely comfortable with.
It therefore seems likely that the PAP will continue to struggle to renew its class of Malay leaders, though this is helped by the fact that other political parties are probably faring even worse. Still, this is somewhat ironic for a party that first came to power in the 1950s and 1960s with the help of some critical support from the Malay community – one article has highlighted the important role played by the progressive Malay nationalists and trade unionists in the PAP’s rise, particularly during the pre-merger and merger periods1. The PAP may find that it needs such support again to offset disaffection from other quarters should it decide to make good on its hints about calling for snap polls in the current economic gloom.
***
1 Lily Zubaidah Rahim, “Winning and losing Malay support, 1950s and 1960s”, Paths Not Taken: Political Pluralism in Post-war Singapore (Singapore, NUS Press: 2008), pp. 95-115. Dr Lily Zubaidah was also the author of the “The Singapore Dilemma”, a book on the alleged marginalisation of Malays in Singapore
