Singapore's political scandals could hurt, but not too much

Nomination day marks the start of the official campaigning period for candidates, a period that will last until the eve of the election on September 11. This will be the first election in Singapore’s history without founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away in March this year. (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)

To understand why even the whiff of scandal can create big waves in Singapore, it’s helpful to consider economics — of six decades ago, not just the past six months.

For Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, the young republic’s best hope of survival after divorce from Malaysia was to transform itself into a base camp for multinational corporations. A tiny country that functioned well in a volatile region. That meant infrastructure, an educated workforce, law and order, competitive taxes. Also desirable was crushing communists and refraining from crusades against the colonial past. A prominent statue of British official Stamford Raffles, who established a free port in the 1800s, was spared demolition.

Last — but by no means least — wooing capital required clean government
and disdain for corruption. Merely being ordinary would doom the island. Lee understood this could also reap electoral benefits: Candidates from the People’s Action Party, which Lee founded, donned white outfits to proclaim purity and subsequently swept to power in the late 1950s. PAP leaders, including premier Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Lee Kuan Yew, still campaign in the color.

The desire to be free of impropriety went hand in hand with efficiency, a muscular state and manicured avenues. They became trademarks. That explains why questions of conduct have made such a splash recently. There’s no sign laundry aired in parliament — an affair between ruling bloc MPs and the anti-corruption probe of a minister — has soured investors on Singapore. Nor are they expected to cost the PAP government at the next election. The opposition Workers’ Party has been rocked by shortcomings of its own, including a romantic entanglement between a lawmaker and a party official.

But for Lee, who has been prime minister since 2004, they still hurt. If one of the signature planks of your country, let alone party, is zero tolerance of impropriety, then it’s a major deal when you fall short. In an eagerly awaited statement to legislators last week, Lee acknowledged he should have moved sooner to end the relationship between the parliament’s speaker, who is married, and a backbencher. Both have resigned their positions. “Why did I take so long, more than two years, to act? It is a fair question,” he responded. “In retrospect and certainly now knowing how things eventually turned out, I agree. I should have forced the issue sooner.” Lee said he had hoped the pair would break up sooner, and he was keen to spare their families hurt and embarrassment.

Also gnawing at the government is an investigation into Transport Minister S. Iswaran by the anti-graft watchdog, about which little detail has been disclosed. Iswaran was arrested last month, released on bail and has taken a leave of absence. The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau hasn’t specified what wrongdoing it’s pursuing and no charges have been filed. Lee and his deputy, Lawrence Wong, said they are committed to process and, if misdeeds by anyone are determined, they will suffer the consequences — regardless of the political hit.

By global benchmarks, these scandals are pretty low key. Donald Trump was indicted Aug 1 on charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — the third criminal prosecution he’s facing as he embarks on his latest run for the White House. In the UK, Boris Johnson is facing an official inquiry over his handling of COVID. Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak is in prison for his role in the 1MDB fiasco, where millions of dollars from a unit of the state investment fund were transferred to Najib’s personal bank account. Industrial-scale cronyism benighted Indonesia under the late president Suharto. Meanwhile, Thailand struggles to form a government, period.

Part of the attention lavished on Singaporean stumbles stems from the fact that they are so rare. In 2022, Singapore was ranked the fifth least corrupt country out of 180 nations. Its passport now ranks as the most powerful in the world, beating Japan to the top spot in an index released last month. The travails have barely registered in markets; more important for investors are US interest rates and the fading recovery in China. The fracas has, nonetheless, become a staple for domestic media. The state is contrite, and that’s reflected in what Singaporeans read and hear. The first four pages of Thursday’s print edition of The Straits Times were devoted entirely to remarks on the scandal by Lee and top ministers, and the opposition response. For now, at least, officials appear reconciled to at least some public airing, especially of the dalliances. It’s hard to isolate the controversies from the broader political and economic climate.

They arrived at a sensitive moment for the government. Lee is preparing to hand over the leadership to the so-called fourth generation of PAP cadres. Wong, the finance minister, is the likely successor. The delicate part is that the government hasn’t given a firm timetable for the guard change: Singapore has had only three premiers in its 58 years as a republic. Transition is a much bigger matter than in many nations.

The country narrowly avoided a recession in the second quarter. Inflation, as is the case in most nations, has been big news. Monetary policy has been tightened and the central bank has signaled it’s too early to relax. Residents grouse about escalating home prices and dramatic increases in rents. The government, which attributes the problem to delays in construction stemming from the pandemic, is emphasising the number of new projects approved or nearing completion. With most of the population living in public-built housing, this is a touchy issue.

In his twilight years, Lee Kuan Yew said he wasn’t so sure Singapore would be around in 100 years. He lamented that the electorate was now dominated by voters born after independence; a two-party system would be a disaster, he contended. The PAP’s struggle to build a viable state from a city — the discipline, vigilance essential to that project — was receding as a rally cry. In his memoir,  From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000, Lee depicted wrongdoing big and small that had to be tackled in the early years. Among them: customs staff taking bribes to speed up the checking of vehicles involved in smuggling, and school teachers receiving kickbacks from stationery providers.

No system is perfect. When you pride yourself on cleanliness, you need to deal with the blowback when stains appear. “In any system, however comprehensive the safeguards, sometimes something will still go wrong,” Lee told parliament on Wednesday.

Singapore has set very high standards for itself, and these damaging revelations will hurt. After all, this is no ordinary place — by design. Grin and bear it.

Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication. 

Credit: Bloomberg