In 1989 political power in Singapore was in the hands of a small
group of individuals who had been instrumental in Singapore's
gaining independence. The leadership core ruled through a
second echelon of potential successors, who tended to be technocrats, administrators, and
managers rather than politicians or power
brokers.
The PAP leaders, convinced that a city-state without natural
resources could not afford the luxury of partisan politics,
acted after 1965
to "depoliticize" the power
structure. Economic growth and political stability
would be maintained instead by the paternal guidance of the
PAP.
Politics, as a result, was only
exercised within very narrow limits determined by the
PAP.
Singapore was thus administered by bureaucrats,
not
politicians, in a meritocracy in which power
was gained through skill, performance, and demonstrated loyalty to
the leaders and their policies.
At the top of the hierarchy in 1989 were fifteen cabinet ministers,
who were concurrently members of Parliament and the CEC, the PAP's
highest policy-making body. Among these ministers was an inner core
of perhaps five members.
Below this group was a tier of senior civil servants who, in
addition to their official duties, filled managerial and
supervisory roles as directors of public corporations and statutory
bodies.
PAP members of Parliament without cabinet or government portfolios
also tended to function at this level of the power hierarchy,
providing links between the government and the populace.
http://countrystudies.us/singapore/52.htm
Now you understand why politics is dead in Singapore.