welcome back for our final session um of politics in action uh we have two fantastic speakers for um uh this final session of uh what's been a fantastic day um we'll be giving a presenting on Singapore and Malaysia starting with Singapore and it's my very great pleasure to introduce Professor Kenneth Paul tan who's a tenur professor of politics film and culture studies at Hong Kong Baptist University he teaches at the Academy of film and the department of government and international relations International Studies sorry he also conducts interdisciplinary research at the school of communication Global Communication Empower research cluster and smart Society lab previously he was vice Dean at the National University of Singapore's lequan you School of Public Policy during its most rapid and critical years of growth he has published numerous articles in leading international journals reflecting an in in ative and interdisciplinary research agenda that Bridges political science public management policy studies sociology Urban studies cultural studies and film and media studies his most recent books include Asia in the old and new cold Wars ideologies narratives and lived experiences movies to save our world Imaging imagining poverty inequality and environmental destruction in the 21st century and Singapore's first year of covid-19 Public Health immigration and neoliberal and and the neoliberal state andth authoritarian populism he was the founding chair of the Asian film archive's board of directors and the chair of the board of directors of Theater Company the necessary stage so please welcome Professor Kenneth Paul tan thank you very much Lydia for that really lovely introduction I appreciate that very much and hello everyone um these days the biggest news coming out of Singapore is that uh in six days time singaporeans will get a new prime minister uh Lawrence Wong is his name and he has been waiting in the wings for more than two years since he was announced as the chosen one uh today I want to talk about this new uh prime minister and these are some other things that I will also uh talk about so the new prime minister Minister uh Singapore has had only three prime ministers since becoming independent in 1965 yeah three uh lewu was the first until 1990 when he felt sufficiently confident to hand over his position to go choong this is how transitions happen in Singapore go was prime minister until uh 2004 uh when he in turn handed the position over to Le's oldest son lisan L uh and lisian L has now been in office for 20 years so what you might call a lack of democratic competition the pap government the people's Action Party government would describe quite favorably as political stability upon which rational and long-term policymaking are possible now for go and for Lee the leadership succession was deliberate and very carefully orchestrated but in the case of the current 4G fourth generation leadership uh the process which began to take place in Earnest in 2018 seemed to be rather plaing Securus and even unsure the most common view about this was a pessimistic one uh that the 4G leaders as accomplished as they uh no doubt were in their professional capacities simply lacked The Experience caliber Charisma and stature for the position of PM W was not the First Choice uh Hing suet over there H suet was but he stepped down as PM designate in 2021 citing age as the primary reason subsequently Wong and his cabinet colleagues chanun sing and onang re-entered the race as front Runners and it was probably Wong's commendable performance as co-chair in the covid multi- ministry taskforce that put him ahead of the competition also the public seemed to find Wong more likable than the others but listening to singaporeans discuss this at the time it often felt like Wong was the lesser of evils now Wong has been portrayed as somewhat atypical he was divorced and he recently remarried he has no children his upbringing was somewhat modest he did not study in branded Elite schools he plays the guitar and apparently rides a motorcycle or maybe once rode a motorcycle I don't but but he has a he has a large presence on social media uh including platforms like Tik Tok where he seems game to participate in the latest viral Trends now the local mainstream media has taken pains to emphasize these last few points partly to present Wong as approachable likable and empathetic but mostly it was to perform the ideological service of demonstrating that meritocracy Works in Singapore and there is enough social Mobility for those from a humble Baseline to become a prime minister but in other ways Wong is actually quite typical another ethnic Chinese man with a scholarly demeanor and impressive achievements uh he has had a wide ranging career in public service uh and uh as cabinet minister he's helmed key Ministries like uh National development education finance and so knowing the Civil Service as intimately as he does gives political Capital necessary for dealing with the many challenges that he will no doubt face in these coming years and one of these challenges will involve managing intraparty Dynamics will the Rivalry for the Prime Minister position simply cease now that Wong Wong has been appointed uh why would it if we assume that the more Progressive shades of Wong's public Persona are authentic then how will he deal deal with powerful and strong willed Hardline ministers in his cabinet even with the now reduced dominance of the Lee family in Singapore politics can Wong really be his own man given that soon to be senior Minister leisan lung as well as his influential wife Hing will sort of still be in the picture can he really be his own man now a second challenge for Wong comes from the political opposition particularly the workers party that uh despite several setbacks in recent years has made impressive gains over the last couple of decades uh the Workers Party have won an increasing proportion of the popular vote and parliamentary seats giving them an opportunity in Parliament and in their own constituencies to dispel the toxic myths about opposition that have been propagated by a hegemonic ruling party many singaporeans um can see that the opposition parties have been able to attract individuals with impressive credentials attract them into into the workers party's leadership ranks many singaporeans also think that opposition politicians are more relatable emotionally intelligent and compassionate quality is that the more coldly logical and technocratic papap politicians often decry as populist now a third challenge comes from alternative voices in civil society mobilizing around newer causes such as climate Justice sexual politics a repeal of the death penalty and support for Palestine this New Politics is driven by the energies of a younger uh less fearful and more globally connected generation of singaporeans who are equipped with sophisticated repertoire of uh uh activism um and they also reflect the changing values that can often be at odds with a p government's core political positions they reflect a more variegated political culture that if not managed well could become highly fractious polarizing and divisive but even more challenging than those three things or those yeah three things will be the hugely uncertain economic environment to which Singapore's fortunes are tied Regional competition technological disruption major world conflicts uh us China rivalry among other things are going to more profoundly affect the lives and livelihoods of ordinary singaporeans who have already been grappling with Rising costs uh emerging forms of poverty inequality demographic tensions and quality of life uh issues now these are complex and not just technical problems to solve and Wong will ultimately be judged by his adaptive leadership not not his technocratic skill and certainly not the politics of Personality that he and his supporting media seem rather intent on on showcasing as about distinguishing features of his leadership so in these complex circumstances will Wong be sufficiently open-minded inclusive and unifying or will he stick rigidly to the success formulas of Singapore's past that may be ill suited for the challenges of the present Singapore has been consistently ranked among the least corrupt countries in the world but 2023 was its unest herbis the year began with uh government leaders justifying in Parliament the decision by Singapore's judicial officials and Corrupt Practices investigation Bureau C cpib uh not to prosecute six former senior Executives of Singapore based company kepal offshore and Marine but to issue them with st warnings instead now in the US courts a unit of this company had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay 55 million Us in bribes for contracts in Brazil over seven year several years and yet the papap government agreed with the assessment that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute in Singapore now regardless of the technicalities of technicalities of these CA of of the case uh Singapore's ability to deal with International corruption was questioned and the New York Times article even suggested that standards of Justice were differently applied to the wealthy and to the working class now for ordinary singaporeans living and working in the well one of the wealthiest and costliest cities in the world elitism and inequality have been a a numbingly sore point at around the same time a p MP tin Palin was a name is her name uh took a job as director of public affairs and policy uh at a Singapore based technology company singaporeans wanded out loud whether this constituted a conflict of interest since it was assumed she would uh represent the interests of a private company in her interactions with ministers and fellow legislators they wondered how something like this could have been approved by the papap which in its rules of prudence uh requires its members to be scrupulously proper uh in July a video emerged on social media in which uh tanan Jin speaker of the house and once in the running for prime minister was caught in a hot mic incident calling Workers Party mp uh jamus lim a populist after he had delivered a speech about providing more help to lower income groups now shortly after tan resigned his position not because of the fa par but because of an inappropriate romantic relationship with another Pap MP who also resigned a married man tan often projected a religious and moralistic public Persona singaporeans were critical of him on moral grounds but also for compromising the impartiality expected of a speaker uh singaporeans also questioned why the Prime Minister had taken so long to act on this having known about the affair for almost uh 3 years uh and and over there by by a most remarkable shall we say uh coincidence which set off much conspiracy thinking another video emerged almost immediately after this uh showing two senior members of the Workers Party opposition Workers Party holding hands in a restaurant now this led to their resignation now the extramarital affair had been secretly recorded 3 years earlier and was only at this time uh released now at around the same time it emerged that two senior cabinet ministers K Shan mugam and Vivian balakrishnan were renting state-owned colonial era Bungalows on the exclusive Ridout Road the Scandal came to be known as redout gate these outsize Prime properties were managed by a government agency overseen by Minister Shan in response to this accusation of conf conflict of interest the government launched an internal inquiry conducted by another cabinet minister uh separately cpib carried out investigations and the two ministers answered questions in Parliament now all of them concluded that there was no criminal or ethical wrongdoing however the Optics as you can well imagine were not good to regain public confidence one can of course tighten regulations and make them clearer but much harder to deal with is the image of well-paid ministers opting for extravagant Lifestyles unlike the vastly more frugal and Spartan choices of the founding generation of political leaders including lean Yu and very much unlike the lives of regular singaporeans who live in small public housing apartments struggle to make ends meet in an expensive and stressful City and who often receive condescension from ministers take a tough policy line on social welfare there's more very shortly after there was another Scandal transport Minister s Isen was arrested released on bail and investigated for receiving gifts from a billionaire hotelier who was mainly involved in bringing Formula 1 grand prix to Singapore um the gifts really amounted to something like 300,000 Singapore dollars the court case is ongoing but the official narrative is that this whole Affair demonstrates not the failure but the effectiveness of Singapore's anti-corruption system this is the so-called own self check own self principle leave the government to Be an Effective check on itself but will singapor accept this in the years to come or will they demand more transparency and Democratic checks and balances and will they be even less accepting of the pap government's line about paying some of the highest political salar in order to ensure a clean government now in March this year the popular and well respected Workers Party uh Chief and leader of the opposition pritam Singh was charged with lying to a parliamentary Committee in 2021 he has pleaded not guilty but if he is convicted it is possible that he would be disqualified from being an MP and from standing in the next election and that would be a considerable blow for the Workers Party and for opposition Prospect uh in general let me say something about the elections the next general elections must be held before November 2025 some people think as early as November this year uh very important elections we framed in terms of giving Wong a strong mandate as pm to lead the 4G team and to take Singapore into the next phase the papap are no doubt well aware of the possibility that they could do worse than in 2020 and here's why uh percentage of popular votes won by the P fell significantly from 2001 to 2011 2015 bucked that Trend but for very very particular reasons that was the year Singapore celebrated its 50th anniversary of Independence as G50 and it was also the year of Lewan Yu's death so a very emotional year but 2020 brought us back to the downward Trend uh even though one might have expected to see a flight to safety during uncertain the uh surrounding the covid crisis but instead we saw voters actually rally uh even more strongly instead of seeing them rally even more strongly around the papap government we saw them swing away from the pap so if if if um the trend is the real Norm then 2015 is going to be a really um uh and and 2015 is a really exceptional year then this coming elections are going to be key uh for the pap to um reassert it legitimacy and Let Me Maybe end um let me end with uh maybe some comments about the political significant so it's important to deeply analyze details and the minutia of of political events and in Singapore this is especially so because we're small and politically very Placid right so little things seem to matter a great uh in a disproportionately um uh uh in a disproportionate way and I I I tend to however be more interested in been stepping away from from them to see how they relate to broader developments and one such development that I have been interested to think about is the decay of successful systems like Singapore uh Singapore success is often attributed uh correctly I think to its relatively clean meritocratic and pragmatic governance but do recent events gesture towards the possibility that it is in fact turning into a scandalous uh elitist and dogmatically closed system that is ill suited to the challenges of a complex world is the government's diminished ability to solve the increasingly complex problems that make life harder for many singaporeans and to inspire and motivate them for better things a sign that both the transactional and transformational basis of its historically uh enormous political legitimacy are steadily eroding and will the Democratic basis of this legitimacy be viewed with increased cynicism as more singaporeans will uh become more critically aware of the bullying style and unfair tactics of the ruling party I think it is possible to imagine that the forces of change will suddenly Galvanize or can suddenly Galvanize around a trigger pulling it with a mixture of desperation and hope and along that Ark we must ask whether Singapore needs a rejuvenated and radically transformed papap or if this is by now so impossible whether we need a replacement of what is fast becoming a decadent ruling party establishment thank you very much thank you Professor tan for that very um interesting update on Singapore we now have about just under 10 minutes of time for questions if you um have a question could you please raise your hand and give your name and affiliation if you if you have one so we've got one up the back okay hi profan I'm RTI from the Philippines but studying my masters here in University of Sydney two questions thank you so much for your presentation about Singapore um would like to I'm curious about how is the Singaporean local politics affects international relations specifically in fostering its peace and development in asan and how can this this clean governance affects or influence the neighboring developing countries yeah oh that's a really good question a difficult one to answer but thank you for it I think um a number of ways right one is actually through um training and education right so one thing that I I've been in involved with for several years in Singapore is a Lian new school of public policy for example and the expressed mission of that school was to improve the standards uh of governance in the region and in in a very direct way right so one of the things we we had to do was to of course raise a lot of endowments so that we can afford to give scholarships to students principally from the asan uh region but also China and India and elsewhere uh and the idea there uh was to bring them to the school um get them to think about policy and governance and development issues not to do propaganda work for Singapore but to sort of expose them to some of the strengths and the weaknesses the successes and the failures of the Singapore model so if they choose to replicate or to adapt some of the things that Singapore has done successfully they would do that with a critical lens and be able to uh kind of adapt them to the particular circumstances of their own countries and the benefit of that experience also was that students from various parts of asan could also exchange ideas and share their own development experiences as well and something bigger comes out of it than just learning the Singapore way of course part of the reason for doing that was so that Singapore could make friends with people who would go back and eventually become leaders in their own country and that expectation of having a network of leaders who were in some sense uh together in the Cradle of their for uh their policy and and governance uh formation uh that network of future Assan leaders would be a key to raising ing uh the standards of of governance and indeed the standards of living in the in the area so that's one uh contribution that I feel quite proud to have been a part of question hi K so yeah um I think I two questions one of them is um uh is coming from this final slide to what extent is p uh is the people's action party and also the forg leaders tra in its past and I think the political economy work is power dependence to what extent is there a PA dependence going on when you comment on that and how is it possible to break that second one is the reverse of that uh because we seeing increasing um populism around the world and you have written a bit about that as well but the what's more worrying is the Confluence of uh populism with nationalism and the weaponization of religion and to what extent do you see uh the worrying signs of that Happ happening in Singapore I he some context because also like you know the C current uh Gaza conflict and also like a number of um um Pap ministers um themselves there's a disproportion number of Christians also in there that is in itself is not a problem but no knowing the religious fundament uh right-wing fundamentalism going on in us the worrying part would that happen in Singapore would would there be a kind of a religious populism happening in Singapore two different question thank you excellent uh two two really excellent and um pretty Central uh uh questions right if we're going to consider the future of Singapore uh the the first one about the being somehow Shackled to the experience of success of the past and um ex drawing exclusively from the formulas of success of the past in order to solve problems in the present and the future yes I I think that's that's really a problem with Singapore and I would say that stepping back uh that's because Singapore has become utterly technocratic now many of us love the sound of this right if only we could be less political and more technocratic we would get problem solved and you know we get the answers and so on but be careful what you wish for because te technocracy also means that we end up treating all problems as if they were technical ones and that somehow you could have Tech textbook answers to them right or the past would give us a model for applying the same Solutions uh to problems that might look the same but aren't that's the problem actually right because the kind of leadership that we need is not a technical leadership but the kind of leadership that we now need in the kind of world that we now live in is an Adaptive kind of leadership one is that is very sensitive to the importance of transforming values behaviors attitudes of people right one that is um uh very very um aware of the importance to innovate and not to repeat and mimic old patterns uh um of of policy making so the the the being able to innovate depends very much on a kind of risk appetite right for this um the problem with a technical approach to policymaking is that risk is is is so low that we don't even want to try something else even though deep inside you know it's fairly obvious to us that what we're doing is not going to help uh with the kind of future that we're facing that's the second thing the third thing is I think it requires a different kind of mindset where um you don't um clamp down on dissenting voices you don't Exile dissenting voices but you actually welcome them and encourage them because it is these dissenting voices that will help us to see the parts of the problem that may not be so obvious um when you take a technical approach to problem solving right now Singapore problem has Singapore the problem with Singapore is that the leaders have been so sure of themselves right and yet so unsure of their political position that they've been basically clamping down on voices that are inconvenient that are alternative or voices that sound so sensible that they might erode the political legitimacy at the heart of the Singapore Pap government myth right which is that the pap holds the Monopoly on all good uh Solutions and so on so forth right so we need to somehow evolve into a system that welcomes The Sting voices that provides safe spaces where we can experiment with new ways to do it uh safe space that can resolve conflicts uh so that we get and that sort of speaks to your second Point too right which is the fissures and the polarizations and the divisions that come with all sorts of things that are going on in the world including uh the Israel Palestinian SL Hamas uh conflict right and how Singapore then deals with its internal ramifications in a multi-racial multi-religious Multicultural Society that again requires an approach that is more than technical an approach that needs to also be adaptive thank you okay thank you so thank you I know we had another question in the room but we're at time can you please join me professor thank thank you for this time [Applause]