3 Lessons from the US
Elections
IS S'PORE READY FOR A MINORITY PM?
Can we see beyond the colour?
Not yet, but young are more colour-blind
By Tan May Ping
November 07, 2008
OVERNIGHT, American voters put us to shame.
They voted in a black
president, while Singaporeans will still baulk at accepting a
non-Chinese prime minister, say some political top guns and many
observers.
In the evolution of democratic
politics, Americans just took a giant step
forward.
Meanwhile, Singaporeans are still lumbering along like Third World
tribes, dragging our baggage of racial
hang-ups.
Of course, not all Americans
are enlightened voters.
Half of the country's
population, who are older and mostly white, are still living in the
past and might well view President-elect Barack Obama as an 'uppity
nigger'.
As one academic commentator
noted: 'Today's radical Republican Party represents a large segment
of the population that believes that abortions and same-sex
marriages are immoral, God sent America to
Iraq...'
So while Mr Obama was the
favourite in polls, many expected whites to reveal their true
colours when put to the test.
Well, they did the right thing
by putting race in the background. Can they continue to do so as
America attempts to heal itself after bruising
campaigns?
And could Singaporeans do the
right thing and ignore the skin colour of a future prime
minister?
The leaders of the People's
Action Party believe that Singaporeans do vote on racial lines,
said Dr Gillian Koh, senior research fellow at the Institute of
Policy Studies (IPS).
Dr Koh said: 'They feel that
there are social faultlines that divide us, especially on race, so
Singapore is no where near to being a de-racialised
country.
'And that is the whole basis of
the GRC system.'
The GRC or group representation
constituency was introduced in 1988 to protect Parliament's
multiracial composition.
The need for such a scheme
shows clearly that we're still tribal folk, flocking together like
birds of a feather.
But the immediate post-65
generation, said Dr Koh, would probably be more ready for other
ideas as to who the PM can be.
'They were brought up to think
One Singapore, One Nation, and would probably not be averse to the
idea because of the political ideals of their time,' she
added.
The young and the cosmopolitan
are likely to be even more colour-blind, say some
observers.
They will let the best man
lead.
Political analyst Terence Chong
from the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies said: 'Many
Singaporeans, especially younger ones, are ready because the
ideologies of multiculturalism and meritocracy have become part of
the Singaporean myth.'
Singaporeans are very
pragmatic, and will look for leaders with management ability and
people-skills, IPS' Dr Koh said.
Citing an IPS post-2006
election survey, Dr Koh said respondents indicated they voted their
members of parliament based on whether they thought they would be
effective, fair and have a heart for the people in
general.
Another survey last year by two
academics at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies
(RSIS) on race and religion also produced surprising
results.
It found that over 91 per cent
of all races polled said they would accept a prime minster of
another race, while at least 92 per cent said they would vote an MP
or a Singapore president of a different race.
Among the Chinese, 94 per cent
did not mind if the PM was an Indian, and 91 per cent, if he was a
Malay.
Referring to the topic of race
as an old issue, Workers' Party's organising secretary Yaw Shin
Leong said: 'If we truly believe in merit and capabilities, then so
long as the person is Singaporean and can do a good job, there
should be no reason why the person can't be given the top
job.
'To say that certain ethnic
groups are not suitable or ready for top office is
regressive'.
All that debate might be purely
academic given that the electoral system here is focused on
political parties, not individual candidates.
The party which has the
majority forms the government and chooses the prime
minister.
Dr Koh said: 'I think we would
need a fully functioning two-party system before we ever reach that
scenario.'
The question of race and prime
ministership was on then-PM Lee Kuan Yew's mind back in
1988.
He publicly said then that he
would have considered then-National Development Minister S
Dhanabalan for the PM's job if not for his Indian
ethnicity.
Singapore, Mr Lee said, was not
ready for an Indian prime minister.
Mr Dhanabalan himself did not
think Chinese Singaporeans were ready to accept a non-Chinese PM.
In a Straits Times report in November last year, he said that such
cross-racial acceptance takes time.
Referring to the RSIS race
survey, Mr Dhanabalan felt that the respondents probably gave
'politically correct' answers that did not reflect their real
feelings.
He said then: 'I'm not quite
convinced. It will take a bit more time. You look at the United
States. How long, how many years were they a nation before a
Catholic could be elected?
'Let's don't even talk about
blacks. Now Barack Obama is the first one. Well, he may not even
make it through the primary, right?
'So these are very deep
feelings. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I think it will
take some time.'
Fast forward a year
later.
Mr Obama has done it, despite
the widespread fears of voting along racial
lines.
Commentators even spoke openly
of the prospect of his assassination by a white supremacist
group.
But, as in Malaysia's general
election, many voters surprised even the experts by rejecting race
to 'do the right thing'.
All this gives Singaporeans
good reason to gaze in the mirror and ask ourselves how deep runs a
tribal instinct and how far we want to evolve as a society.
the context is totally different.
while our situation isn't as extreme as israel's, asking us to
vote regardless of race/religion in a secular state located in a
region of the world where religion plays a big part isn't going to
be easy. and how are you going to find a candidate that would
appeal to a majority? you don't even see much of them as MPs,
