Money Politics Vs Division One Team

A Kadir Jasin

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WE have discussed enough about the sex-, scandal- and money-filled Malaysian politics. As a result, we had worked ourselves up. So let’s take a respite and talk about other people for a change.

Let’s talk about our neighbour, Singapore in particular, about the capacity and penchant of its de facto supreme leader, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, to take a regular jab at its neighbours in order to keep the Singaporeans in line.

It doesn’t matter much whether we agree or disagree with Mr Lee. A lot of people disagree with him but he prevails for more than half a century.

But I am inclined to agree with him when he said “no money politics in Singapore.” The Malaysian National News Agency, Bernama, on Aug 14, quoted Lee as saying that political problems faced by many countries in Asia are due to money politics but the problem did not take root in Singapore because "we have a Division One team in charge."

Yes, I have to agree that there’s no money politics in Singapore. In Singapore, all that they have is money. They have a lot of it stacked up in their banks. It’s not necessarily theirs. It can be money for people around South East Asia who are using Singapore as save haven for their wealth.

Each time there’s an economic or political crisis in any of the South East Asian countries, money flows to Singapore for permanent and temporary refuge.

As I have repeatedly state here and in the Malaysian Business magazine, in the last two or three years, more Malaysian FDI flowed to Singapore than the other way round. In another word, the poorer Malaysia is doing more to boost Singapore’s economy than it should otherwise be.

In Singapore, about the only time when money politics plays a role is when Mr Lee, his Prime Minister son Lee Shien Loong and the People’s Action Party use it to kill the opposition parties. And that happens pretty often.

It is almost a rule that every single opposition leader in Singapore is taken to court for allegedly defaming Lee and his PAP colleagues or is portrayed as bankrupt, drunkard and tax evader.

Bernama quoted Lee as saying that in many Asian countries, money politics was simply the "code word" for buying votes to gain power and after that was done, “to recover your expenses plus some profit for the next round of vote-buying."

"One of the big problems they now face, in other countries, is the people in power want to reserve the money, keep it for themselves. So, they exclude young able people who wants to join their team.

"The result is, there is no talent inside the existing parties," Lee, who is Minister Mentor, was quoted by the local newspaper, Today as saying at a gathering of his Tanjong Pagar constituents Wednesday night in celebration of Singapore's 43rd National Day which was last Saturday.

"In other countries, elections do not put up a Division One team. They are a Division Three, either a B team or a C team in charge. In Singapore, we carefully select our candidates," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Singapore is all about money and very little politics that even the ever talkative, inquisitive taxi drivers seldom bring up the subject of Singapore politics. But they are just too happy to talk about Malaysian politics.

Each time I took a ride with them, I am surprised to learn just how much they know about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Anwar Ibrahim, Samy Vellu and other Malaysian politicians.

The answer is obvious. Because there’s no politics but only money in Singapore, the Singaporeans “adopted” the Malaysian politics as theirs. They know quiet a lot about our politics from reading their newspapers.

Because there’s not much politics to report in Singapore and whatever little they have is monopolized by the DAP, the Singapore newspapers rely on political news from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to spice up their otherwise dull pages.

So for the Singaporean newspapers and their readers, Malaysian politics is their “adoptive politics.” I have a sneaky feeling that if they can, they would like the Singapore politics to be a little bit like Malaysian politics.

Incidentally, many of the former Malaysian correspondents of Singapore newspapers and foreign news agencies are today holding important jobs in key Malaysian media organizations and propaganda outfits.

In fact, if we Malaysians want to read about the juicier stuff in the Malaysian politics that are not reported by our party-controlled mainstream newspapers, we can read them in the Singapore Straits Times, Business Times and other Singapore newspapers. We can now read them online.

Praising Singapore’s political system (read the PAP system) Mr Lee said: "Over the years, with each election, we see the quality of the MPs, their education levels, their competence, their abilities, their energy. Their youthfulness is renewed and we have a leadership that’s able to meet the rising standards of the population."

Mr Lee lamented that today’s younger generation did not understand all this. They say, oh, let’s have multiparty politics. Let’s have different parties and be in charge of the Government.

"Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished!" he said.

Mr Lee wanted the people proposing such a change to study Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines, where rotating party governments had led to more mismanagement. Bernama did not say if Mr Lee mentioned Malaysia too.

He might not have because we are not quite a two-party system yet although the results of the March 8 general polls suggested that the proposed Pakatan Rakyat could pose a long- term challenge to the Barisan Nasional if it succeeds in keeping its solidarity alive.

But ongoing Permatang Pauh by-election and the sodomy charge against Anwar Ibrahim, who is representing the People’s Alliance, could put the solidarity among the Democratic Action Party (an offshoot of the PAP), the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (Pas) and People’s Justice Party (PKR) to test.

Pas, at its recently ended annual general assembly in Ipoh, has temporarily withheld its endorsement of Anwar and the shadow Prime Minister of the Pakatan Rakyat.

Back to Singapore, I wonder what “low hanging fruits” – to borrow Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s famous quote – can we now plug given the fact that our much-touted team to the Court of International Justice in the Hague, had lost Pedra Branca to the Republic.

If we are not careful – this includes listening to the same losing negotiating team – we may lose in further negotiations to resolve the remaining issues concerning the ownership and economic applications of the remaining “rocks” in the disputed seas.

Maybe we should put aside our pride and take Mr Lee’s pointer by having a “Division One” team leading us.

And while we are struggling to show some coherence in managing the looming global economic problems, Mr Lee was full of confidence that “even in the face of a global recession, Singapore had enough long-term investments to buffer the setbacks.”

"Why are we on top of our problem? Because there’s a government that is planning ahead, seeing ahead, calculating ahead, making the right decision," said Master Lee.

For me, I rest my case, and apologize to all of you for not updating this blog as regularly as I should.