Who, indeed ?
I guess the biggest failures in MM LKY's legacy is the lack of any
institution, or institutional procedures, that can independently
function on its own in the selection process of leaders for the
various positions of Government - WITHOUT him poking his finger, or
having a say, or influencing the outcome.
Be it the choice of candidate for the Elected Presidency, or for
the CJ position, and perhaps the Commissioner of Police, as well as
the Chief of Defense Force, let alone the nominee for the Prime
Minister's post - including the investments in creating a National
Zoo, Bird Park, Sentosa Island, and even a Night Safari - every
aspect of Government Policy and decision has MM LKY's fingerprints
all over it - (Read his memoirs about the necessity of any leader
to be able to perform multi-tasks, and putting potential leaders in
a pressure cooker environment - similar to training US astronauts
for space missions).
Now that he is supposed to be in semi-retirement, LKY is still
being kept informed, and seems to be keeping an eye despite LHL
being at the helm.
LHL has been groomed to be as omni-potent as LKY, but unfortunately
his brush with cancer prevent him from being completely one.
However, someone's creativity came to his rescue - to overcome his
handicap by having a support staff of SIX
"Ministers-WITHOUT-Porfolio" in the Prime Minister's Office -
(resulting in a Cabinet with the most number of Ministers, and
Ministers-Without-Portfolio).
This process of grooming a leader can be seen from previous press
report in the early 1990s when LHL - being the Minister of Trade
and Industries - had opposed the Sentosa Development Board of
Directors decision to upgrade the dated and "toy-like" Monorail
System into a full fledge LRT of sort, and having the monorail
extended from Sentosa onto the main island of Singapore.
The "brilliant counter" proposal from LHL was to have the lumbering
SBS buses driven across a causeway into the narrow streets built by
the British during the 1940s, on an island that was once called
"Pulau Blakang Mati", and with this ignominous name being changed
to "Sentosa".
The question asked then was "Why should LHL interfere and over-ride
the decision of those experienced persons selected to be on the
Board of Directors to run Sentosa Island, all of whom probably had
a keener sense of business acumen in their decision to upgrade the
Monorail as part of the overall plan to increase visitor attendance
at Sentosa?"
Ten years later, in 2004, it was announced that a completely new
Monorail System is to be introduced, and will be connecting Sentosa
with the main island of Singapore.
It seems that the earlier decision of those keen-eyed Directors,
appointed to the Board of Sentosa Development Corporation, is now
vindicated.
Someone should have asked this question: "Could the sliding visitor
numbers to Sentosa over the last ten years be arrested, if we had
gone ahead in the early 1990s with the decision to reinvest in a
new Monorail System? "
Without any institutions that can be "Politically Blind" and which
can act independently for the supreme interest of Singapore, can
Singapore ever have the X-Factor in anything or everything that is
being done ?
Who should we blame for the absence of the X-Factor, when all
planning is always being overseen and guided by the unseen hands
and mind of ONE, who claim "supreme omnipotence" in the ownership
of Singapore and her Future that "even in his grave, he will rise
up to raise hell for the interest of Singapore" ?
Regretably, your question itself is begging for an answer which
hardly can be satisfactorily responded under the present
circumstances.
