On Singapore and a non-Chinese Prime Minister

Would like to start off today's post by apologizing to all for not posting in the past 2 weeks. It has been a tiring few weeks for myself, alternating between sleep and work, and during weekends I still feel extremely tired with not much motivation to blog. Must be the work induced stress.

However, I will still try to keep up the weekly blogging the best I can, but if I fail to do so, I hope my readers will understand.

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Given my 2 week break from blogging, there have been many topics that surfaced for me to blog about. However, the issue that I felt the most strongly about, and potentially the most controversial one, was one that happened very recently, just a couple of days ago.

On Friday, Prime Minister-Designate Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat mentioned during a forum at NTU that the older generation of Singaporeans were not ready to accept a non-Chinese Prime Minister. When further quizzed on whether there is a contradiction, considering the Reserved Elections in 2017 where President Halimah Yaccob was elected unopposed when only Malay candidates could run for the post, Minister Heng denied the allegation, stating that it was further evidence that we needed a safeguard and a measure that signifies Singapore was not ready to have a non-Chinese leader. (Source: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/older-generation-singaporeans-not-ready-non-chinese-pm-heng-swee-keat)

Cue the outrage.

"How dare our future PM accuse us of being racist?"

The outrage is not unfounded. A survey in 2016 conducted by Blackbox found that Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was the respondents' top pick to succeed PM Lee Hsien Loong for the premiership of Singapore. In fact, DPM Tharman won the greatest percentage of votes among the constituencies during GE2015. The 2016 Bukit Batok by-election saw a minority newcomer, Murali Pillai, fend off veteran opposition member Chee Soon Juan to win the seat. To many, minority politicians can be elected, and there should be no issue with them being the prime minister.

But Minister Heng's comments are not unfounded too. With reference to source https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singaporeans-respect-people-from-all-races-but-quite-a-number-find-racism-still-an-issue, in the very same year, a survey from Channel NewsAsia (CNA) with the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) showed that not only did the Chinese prefer a PM of their own race, the effects are the same across all races, except that the results are more pronounced for the Chinese. In fact, only 53% and 60% of the Chinese would accept a Malay and Indian Prime Minister. Minister Heng's allegations on the older generation are right too, less than half of the Chinese would accept a non-Chinese Prime Minister.

Personally, I have 2 main takeaways from this report.

Thought 1: The results are Sobering.

And I don't mean it in any good sense. It is time for us to stop pretending that we are a happy multiracial society where all races live happily together. We are not, and it is time to wake up. 

The notion that Singapore is practicing "Racial Tolerance" instead of "Racial Harmony" is all the more true, with the survey results proving it beyond a doubt. We can accept people of different races around us, living, working, and succeeding with us. But at the end of the day, we still prefer our own skin colour. Sure, everyone in Singapore can succeed regardless of their race, this I agree, but the fact of the matter is that many are still prejudiced against other races. Some bottle it in to themselves, some do not even know they are prejudiced.

Tharman's popularity could be because of his western views which are modified into Singapore's context. Tharman is no doubt a very capable man, but he is an exception to this debate. As for Murali, I believe that while he is also very capable, he was voted in along Party Lines, where the GE2015 big win by the PAP still lingered, far beating any strong challenge from Chee. Side note: I will talk about this in a future blog post, but an idea that I have thought about is that when it comes to voting for the PAP, voters generally vote for the party. Whereas when voting for the opposition, voters vote for the candidates. 

The fact of the matter is, if two equally independent candidates have the same calibre and skills, the people are more likely to choose the candidate of their own race.

It is time for us to stop discrediting Minister Heng's comments and take a good hard look at ourselves. Can we really call ourselves a country which practices racial harmony? What can we do to reduce and stop such prejudices from manifesting, or is it just a fact that we will forever be a little racist, and we will never be ready for a non-Chinese PM? 

I'm not saying we must be completely not racist, because our experiences and upbringing inadvertently results in some bias. Perhaps even some of our daily thoughts at work or at school are discriminatory by nature, just that we never really examined these thoughts closely.

As a youth growing up in Singapore, this matter has really brought me down to earth, and realizing that society is a lot more darker than I pictured it to be.

Thought #2: But so what?

In my first point, I established Minister Heng's comments are probably true. 

So Singaporeans are to some extent closet-racists, but does that mean we shouldn't get a non-Chinese Prime Minister?

I have mentioned before that Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected to represent their constituents' views in parliament. This also means that MPs are elected to make national decisions for their constituents. This is because not all constituents have sufficient intelligence nor experience to make decisions on a large scale, hence they elect someone to represent them. Electors trust their MPs to make the right decisions for them, otherwise they will vote them out.

And the MPs should use their common sense here. They should do what is morally right here, which is to allow for a non-Chinese Prime Minister. They need to work in Singapore's best interests, and follow Singapore's beliefs. 

Granted, their constituents may not be happy for what their MPs do. But I believe, and have mentioned, that this is the beauty of elections. People who do not have enough education, experience, or common sense, are prevented from directly influencing the outcome of our nation. Of course there is the possibility of the MP being voted out, but I believe no Singaporean MP will be foolish enough to appear to the electorate as racist.

Furthermore, at least the results of the survey show that on the overall, even the poorest results of percentage of Chinese willing to accept a Malay PM is at a passable 53%. I can conclude that more Singaporeans are willing to accept a PM from another race than not, which is a slight reconciliation during all this drama.

Also, as a personal thought, I really do not think that the PAP will suffer from any (large) political loss even with a non-Chinese PM. From my idea above about how voters vote, those who support the PAP name will vote for PAP, regardless of who their candidates are. In other words, as long as the PAP performs well, they will retain power, regardless of who their leader is. I am very sure if Tharman or any other minority minister were to lead the PAP into an election today, the PAP will still win.

As for the opposition, however, I do suspect people vote more for the candidates than the party, so the racial issue may kick in. Yet, it will be a very long time later before any significant opposition party actually forms the government, so having an opposition-turned-ruling minority PM is a non-question at the moment.

But of course, do not have a minority PM just for the sake of it, slight reference to the Reserved Presidential Elections. Only have a minority PM if he/she is the best person for the job. If a Chinese minister becomes the most capable person to lead the team, so be it, but don't make his premiership be because of his race.

In conclusion, some Singaporeans may not be ready for a minority PM, but that does not mean we cannot have a minority PM.