The reason why meritocracy is the main-stay of Singapore is because the government shrewdly knows that Chinese students will outperform the Malays and Indians there academically. There is no benign intention on their part.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to economics. If the government can provide its population with financial freedom to buy what they want, then it will remain in power. The LDP party in Japan failed here, that's why it lost the election.

I'm disappointed with my country too. But only because it has not made the leap into the high-income status. Once the economy prospers, then the arts scene and social scene will progress and who wouldn't be happy with that?

"It is this uncompromising commitment to self-renewal, he said, that has allowed the PAP to thus far avoid the fate of other long-ruling parties, such as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan and the Barisan Nasional (BN) in Malaysia."

Singapore is known for its autocratic leadership. The leaders are well known "legally dictators". Being the supporter of USA and Israel, they are made "look good" by the international media controlled by the Jews.

Look at how they control the Opposition movement. How many Opposition MPs in Parliament? One may argue that in democracy system, it is the people who decide but it's not a secret that the Singapore government has succeeded to install fear in the mind of its citizen towards Opposition. The media looks "independent on surface" but in actual fact under government control.

"Freedom of Speech" at Speakers Corner for the Opposition? PAP is good at making drama only!

I fully 101% support your statement.

An excerpts of article in The Epoch Times (Australia) by Tian Jie.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-5-3/28402.html


It is very difficult for people who have never lived in Singapore to imagine and understand the nature of its dictatorship and autocracy. On the surface, it looks like Singapore has a democratic system and that people are granted the right to chose and vote. However, in actuality, it is a country with complete dictatorship and autocracy.

For a long period of time Singapore has been ruled by one political party. Currently among the 94 congressmen, there are only two elected members from opposition parties, so opposition parties do not have any opportunity to challenge the ruling party. Due to strict monitoring and threat by the government, most people dare not to or are even scared to be in touch with any of the opposition parties. They are not willing to openly support the opposition parties. Therefore the opposition parties, in the political system of Singapore, are actually just an ornament for the outside world. It is a coat of democracy covering up its nature. The small number of people who dare to step forward and challenge the government, especially those who join the opposition parties to participate in the election, will simply be brought to court in the name for "slandering the system" because of some minor public speeches or immaterial articles they wrote. The judicial system of Singapore basically obeys the government. Cases related to challenging the government or the political leaders rarely have any prospect of winning.

Members of the opposition parties, if sued, can predict that they will definitely lose their lawsuits under the judicial system controlled by the government. However, these unfortunate people, knowing clearly that they will not win, have to defend their cases again and again in court. In addition to paying expensive legal fees for the lawsuits, they also need to face a huge penalty fee in the end. The lengthy legal procedures have turned most of them bankrupt. In one of the elections in the 90s, a famous lawyer joined one of the opposition parties, the 'Workers Party', to participate in the election. But his public speech in an election gathering was taken out of context. He was sued by many members of the ruling party. That lawyer, in order to escape from the political persecution, left Singapore and settled down in Australia.

In the one or two districts of the opposition parties, people living there can feel the pressure and boundaries. For example, the development of civil construction, education and even transportation is all under control of the districts of the ruling party. This is equivalent to silent revenge and suppression. Due to these reasons, several former districts of the opposition parties were forced to vote for the candidates of the ruling party in the election. It is therefore more and more difficult for the opposition parties to maintain their foundations.

Singapore used to be totally against communism. Since late 1980s, it established a diplomatic relationship with China and has become closer and closer to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It now completely follows the CCP, seeks benefits from the CCP and conducts acts that are in the interest of the CCP. It is not hard to understand why the government of Singapore, disregarding its own image, has committed an evil deed by bringing two innocent Falun Gong practitioners to court and heavily punishing them for letting tourists and policemen know the truth of Falun Gong.

There are two major media organizations in Singapore. One is a newspaper organization, controlling all the newspapers in Singapore; and the other is a television organization, controlling most of the TV stations. Although the two groups are run independently on the surface, they are actually heavily influenced by the government. It is rare to hear the voice of the opposition parties in local media. The opinions from the opposition parties are always put in the least obvious and the hidden places. It is rare to see or to hear dissatisfaction or negative comments toward government policies or leaders. In addition, the media in Singapore is heavily influenced by the CCP. Accordingly, The Singapore United Times is the only overseas paper that is present in Mainland China. Even papers that are heavily influenced by the CCP, such as The Xing Pao Daily and The Ming Daily of Hong Kong and The World Daily of Taiwan, can not compare with it. In this situation, The Singapore United has to completely conform to the CCP. Any news that the CCP does not like cannot be published. There is absolutely no news of the CCP's brutal persecution toward members of the democratic movements, Christians and Falun Gong members. A friend of mine told me once that he met one of the editors. He found out that the Chinese Embassy provides articles to The Singapore United on a regular basis. The Singapore United is obliged to publish these articles and is forbidden to publish other articles, otherwise the paper would be banned in Mainland China. Once in a while, if the paper published some articles by mistake that the Chinese Embassy did not want to see published, the ambassadors would be furious. They would threaten the paper and then entice them with material benefits.

While I agree that Singapore had a quite fair and just governance (maybe too fair and just for our taste), I do notice that their extreme meritocratic measures do have a side-effect yet unseen in our country, but very common among Asians living overseas.
I have Singaporean relatives, so I can't help but notice that my younger relatives (starting from Generation Y) and their friends of any other races are starting to lose their racial identities in their rat-race among the kiasu circuit of Singapore. They prefer not to speak in their mother's tongue, but rather in English, even with their elder relatives who are not proficient in English. To an extreme extent, some of them don't even know how to speak in their mother's tongue, much to the lament of the more senior relatives.
They and their friends are more comfortable celebrating Western-influence festivals such Halloween and American-style Christmas rather than the local festivities. And just like some of us who think that Malaysia sucks and flocked to Singapore for more income, so do the younger generations think of Singapore as too constraining and thrifty, and flocked to the Western hemisphere for more income; you can find a large diaspora of Singaporeans living abroad, and a larger diaspora of foreigners filling their absence in the city-state.
To top it off, some of the younger generation are too concerned with generating wealth, they even ignored marriage and children until it was way too late; this results in a dangerously low natality, forcing the Singapore government to roll out a special initiative which include heavy advertisements and rewards just to make them marry and increase the natality rate.
Tit for tat, we have a lot to learn from our southern neighbor, both good and bad. Even if we don't have the backing of a powerful superpower like them, we still can make a difference.

The title of that article is:
Nov 1, 2009
'Promising' PAP candidates
By Jeremy Au Yong.

Question: Can you explain why The Straits Times chose to present the word 'Promising' in quotation marks? Why didn't The Straits Times present the title as: Promising PAP Candidates?

Hi unclebuck1967,

I think Singapore PMs son is still young and he will repeat the same comment for another 20 years to hand over Singapore to his son, just like the way the senior did.

cheers..

unclebuck , you are right , we are not being any less Malaysian nor unpatriotic as what many of these goons would say. We will live and die in Malaysia , our country , we cannot claim China as our mother land although our ancestors are from there , neither would China take us in. Those goons who think that we are not loyal and questioning our loyalty are dumb and dumbers. We criticise and we are unhappy because we are frustrated with the unfair treatment. I do care for my Malay and Indian friends who got discriminated by the policies that only favor some and benefited the cronies only. - AnSoN

Dear unclebuck, our political leaders have identified the potential future leaders to govern this country much much earlier than our neighbour S’pore.
The sons, the daughters, the son-in-laws, the nephews, the cousins, the cronies …are all preferred candidates, didn’t you notice it ? We are ahead than S’pore lah.

The implementation of merit based future leaders is the only way to move forward in the future. PAP has attracted talents for so many years while BN has only attracted dirty cronies who wants to enrich their pockets. MM Lee has great foresight and has steer the nation to great progress while overcoming uphill challenges. To compare the leaders of Singapore and that of Malaysia is like heaven and hell comparison. Just look at the recent Budget release, see how fast they revert their notions and how strong public sentiments are against their "intelligent" decisions. The choice of leaders in Singapore vs our very own ministers, an obvious reason why a right minded person would put their trust in the Singapore government.