COMMENTARY: With a string of public services lapses in 2018/2019, there is a risk that trust between the government and the public is eroded. But open discussion of such issues will force both the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and the Opposition to recruit and deploy leaders who will best serve Singapore and its interests.

Written by Bilveer Singh, the essay "New Issues and Developments in Singapore as the Pre-Dominant PAP Prepares for the Forthcoming General Elections" argues that lapses in the public service have raised questions about the competency of the PAP.

• Multiple failures have emerged in the public service such as the leak of the Ministry of Health's HIV Registry, and five deaths within 18 months in the SAF, among others.
• A commentary on Lianhe Zaobao questioned if these lapses were the result of a larger culture of complacency that had set in.
• It echoed an earlier commentary in The Straits Times that also warned of the danger of losing awareness should the government become too comfortable.
• DPM Heng Swee Keat has since defended the government, showing that such a discussion on trust issues has been mainstreamed.
• Open discussions will also force both the PAP and Opposition to do better in recruiting leaders who serve Singapore's interest.

This essay is part of a book titled Is The People's Action Party Here to Stay? which was published by World Scientific in 2019. You can get a copy here.

Bilveer Singh is the Deputy Head of the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

By Bilveer Singh

Singapore's source of strength is supposed to be trust between the government and the public

Since June 1959 and through the trials and tribulations that followed, especially as a state in Malaysia and as an independent state, what has been largely responsible for the success of the PAP is primarily the trust, faith and confidence the Singapore voters have in the ruling party.

Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew has been quoted as saying that “trust between the government and people” was the single “greatest asset”.

Similarly, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that “the PAP has earned the people’s trust the hard way and we must never take it for granted or fritter it away.”

However, attention has been called to a string of public service lapses and what they symbolise

Yet, on February 1, 2019, a leading Chinese daily in Singapore, Lianhe Zaobao published an editorial calling on the government to restore the public’s confidence following several lapses by public service providers and government agencies.

The Lianhe Zaobao editorial listed the following lapses as evidence of what was described as rising complacency of the Singapore system:

• MOH’s HIV Registry data being leaked affecting 16,600 individuals; the SingHealth hacking, the biggest ever hacking incident in Singapore’s history, that led to the theft of 1.5 million patient records;
• five deaths in the last 18 months during Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) training;
• Tan Tock Seng Hospital personnel failing to properly sterilise dental equipment used on patients;
• a Hepatitis C outbreak in Singapore General Hospital due to gaps in infection prevention and control practices;
• the “deteriorating” quality of SingPost’s service, which includes the recent incident of a postman throwing away letters;
• increasing frequencies of large-scale power outages;
• “improper” management of SMRT which led to several major breakdowns, death of maintenance crew, and flooding of a tunnel.

This list did not include mistakes in distribution of the CHAS subsidies, the mishandling of blood donors’ data by its vendor and the Hyflux saga, not to mention the corruption involving government-linked companies such as Keppel, Jurong and Sembawang shipyards and fines meted out in the United States.

Lianhe Zaobao argued that these mistakes and lapses were not accidental but probably had more to do with “the deterioration of our work ethic and a culture of ‘muddling along’ taking root.”

Also, “with the society becoming too comfortable, people have become complacent, unwilling to improve the system, choose to ignore what’s happening outside, and have become too self-satisfied.”

Finally, it may also have to do with the problem of how rewards and punishments are meted out.

The editorial noted that the culture and practice of “punishing the rank and file, while senior management takes little to no responsibility, reinforces negative attitudes and leads to a collective mentality of not taking their work seriously.”

Trust between both sides is at risk of eroding

Exactly a year earlier, Chua Mui Hoong noted that there are Singaporeans with “deep-seated gripes” against the government.

Chua argued that “for this group, maintaining trust in Government is not the issue because it has already been eroded. They may be a minority but they are vocal and with social media and technology, their views spread quickly and are amplified."

Chua also quoted Goh Choon Kang, a former PAP MP’s commentary in Lianhe Zaobao in December 2017 about the consequences stemming from the loss of trust between the elite and the masses, referring mainly to developments in Western societies.

Goh Choon Kang also warned Singaporean leaders about turning their backs on the masses.

Goh Choon Kang, in conclusion warned, “like mainstream political parties in other countries, the PAP may encounter issues of being too comfortable, of arrogance, slackness and losing touch with the grassroots because of its long-term rule, if it does not have sufficient awareness of potential problems or is unable to correct some possible problems in time”, something Chua advised, where Goh’s “warning should be heeded.”

DPM Heng has responded in defence of the government's standards

In view of the warnings about the possible ‘loss of touch’ by the PAP with the masses in general and the criticisms raised in the February 2019 Lianhe Zaobao editorial, Singapore’s prime minister-in-waiting, Heng Swee Keat, on February 9 2019, responded by defending the government.

He argued that he and his cabinet colleagues needed to respond to questions raised about the increasing complacency of the Singapore system.

He said that the government will “not shirk from tackling problems” and dismissed suggestions that the political leadership and government have gone below the high standards.

Heng said,

“We will not flinch from taking a hard look at ourselves each time there is a failure and doing whatever is necessary to put things right. But I reject the suggestion by some that the political leadership has allowed the whole system to go slack. And worse still, that we have gone soft on ourselves and the public service, failing to hold senior people accountable when things go wrong.”

On the issue of accountability, Heng noted that “in serious cases, independent committees of inquiry are convened, and their findings, however awkward, are made public. Individuals found culpable will be held responsible and disciplined. If the lapse shows that the leader has been slack, negligent or incompetent, then serious consequences must follow, including removal.”

Growing divide between the government and the public now mainstream

Clearly, while Heng was compelled to respond to criticisms and observations raised by observers and analysts such as Chua Mui Hoong, Goh Choon Kang and the editorial leaders of Lianhe Zaobao, the important point is that the issues of the capabilities of political leaders and the growing divide between the political elites and the masses have become mainstreamed.

This is all the more so as political office holders and senior civil servants are extremely highly paid, and where there is a perception, as stated in the Lianhe Zaobao editorial, there are serious issues of rewards and punishment in the public service.

As more issues of governance surface, especially those associated with ‘public service failures’ such as hacking into the MOH, MRT breakdowns, power outages, training deaths in the SAF or even the Hyflux saga, commentators and the public will view the ruling elites and the party with concern, and raise the question, has the PAP declined in quality?

This is all the more as the PAP has been so focussed on selecting the right type of leaders for Singapore and where the survival of Singapore is often said to impinge on the quality of leaders in the PAP.

Notwithstanding these issues, the PAP still, in comparison, has been able to recruit the best and brightest, and has been good in problem solving.

To that extent, will issues relating to the credibility of the PAP and whether there is a growing trust deficit between the rulers and ruled in society become hotly discussed in the coming general elections remains to be seen.

Raising of such issues will force both the PAP & the Opposition to do better

Also, the more such issues are raised, the better it will be in forcing not just the PAP but also the Opposition to recruit and deploy leaders who will best serve Singapore and its interests.

Without doubt, the PAP will not be plunging into the next general elections from a very big comfort zone as it did in 2015, what more, to repeat its unexpectedly resounding victory to the general demolition of the Opposition as whole.

If the major issues remain unresolved and the ground remains sour, the chances are the ruling party will defer the forthcoming elections to a later date as it still has a big window till January 2021.

Still, as elsewhere, Singapore politics, and for that matter, opposition politics, is not a simple plus-minus issue.

This is because many factors go into how the public perceives the role, place and importance of the ruling party and the Opposition.

Most of the public believes the PAP is largely decent, but also want a proper opposition to check it

While the majority of the public continues to believe that the PAP as the government is good for Singapore, at the same time, it also wants a respectable and effective opposition to be positioned in parliament to act as a check and balance than to give the PAP an unchecked and unfettered free reign.

At the same time, the status of the Opposition has enhanced since 2015 while that of the government has suffered some dent as evident from the various mini-crises it is facing — the four cyberattacks on MOH and the Hyflux issues being just some of the more recent ones.

The forthcoming rise of the GST also hangs like a sword of Damocles over the PAP, just as many in the public are wary about the government’s newly minted bill on the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill that was tabled in parliament on April 1, 2019, leading many to believe that the government may have acquired too much power on deciding what is fact and what is fake?

At the same time, while there may be a new window of opportunity for the Opposition to increase its presence and role in Singapore politics, the minor and fringe parties also need to find their place in the political landscape.

It remains to be seen how the Opposition will perform

If these largely ineffective political parties are in existence for decoration purposes or to stoke personal alter egos, then the PAP will continue to score between 70 per cent to 80 per cent of votes in certain GRCs, as it did in 2015, thereby bumping up the overall performance of the Singapore dominant party.

Hence, while the challenges are manifold, whether the Opposition has the capacity to work together and behave as a team to challenge the PAP remains to be seen.

If it does, the PAP will be stretched and a new modus operandi will emerge; if not, it will be more or less the same as in the past, with the one-party dominant system in Singapore largely unchanged even though similar systems have or are collapsing elsewhere.

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Top image collage from Alyce Kathlyn Facebook, Andrew Pang.