Between 1981 and 1991, Singapore underwent a defining decade of political change. Former Senior Minister S. Jayakumar, who helped shape three landmark constitutional reforms, sits down with three young CNA journalists at the Old Parliament House, where these laws were passed. Drawing on his new book, he revisits a question that had concerned Lee Kuan Yew since the 1970s: could future elections leave too few minorities in Parliament? He traces how that concern led to proposals, Cabinet disagreements and difficult choices that ultimately shaped Singapore’s GRC system.
0:00 Critics: GRCs developed to disadvantage the opposition
5:32 Lee Kuan Yew’s commitment to safeguarding minority representation
8:04 The Twin Constituencies proposal
9:16 Ahmad Mattar: Special safeguards could create “crutch mentality”
13:47 How the proposal evolved
14:54 S. Jayakumar’s turning point
17:37 How relevant are GRCs today?
20:29 Securing minority representation in Singapore’s highest office
24:31 Other safeguards for multiculturalism in Singapore
#CNA #CNAInsider #Singapore #Politics
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First, the core premise is that voters may not elect minority candidates on their own. Today that is hard to test, because most minority candidates now enter through GRCs. When they have stood alone, the record is not bad: Murali Pillai won Bukit Batok SMC in 2020, and Michael Palmer won Punggol East in 2011. If the racial undercurrents Prof Jayakumar describes are real, the clearest evidence would come from all parties fielding more minority candidates in SMCs. If they win, the safeguard can be scaled back. If they struggle, the case for it is stronger.
Second, the big team advantage protects whoever holds the seat, not just the PAP. WP has kept Aljunied in every election since winning it in 2011. That suggests team size is mostly about protecting incumbents, which is a separate question from minority representation.
Keeping these two questions apart, and relying on data instead of assumptions, might make an honest debate on reform easier.
This is a very interesting and informative video. It also highlights the depth (or lack thereof) of Singapore's journalistic stock.
The interviewers looked absolutely shell shocked, appeared to not want to be there and reading from tight scripts. While putting young, inexperienced journalists in front of the Prof to obviously gain exposure is commendable, the producers could have helped by scripting more incisive and probing questions.
Still "scared" of the old guard huh?
It sounds like a noble cause, but the fact that JBJ won the 1981 Anson by-election (beating a Chinese PAP candidate at that) sorta undermines that quite a bit. Same with Pritam being regarded as a respected leader of WP on his own merit, and on a similar vein Tharman being elected President as well.
I think Singaporeans are clear-eyed enough to recognise that if someone is good enough, they will be voted based on their qualities rather than simply looking at their race.
China: Multiracial and Multicultural
Singapore: A little united nations
True blue Malay Singaporeans: Facing identity crisis. In the past, they thought they were lagging behind the Chinese and Indians. Today, they feel like being marginalised by all the non Malays (locals and foreign talents).
True blue Indian Singaporeans: Being mistaken as CECA. In the past, they were able to compete with the Chinese in all areas. Today, they also feel like being marginalised.
True blue Chinese Singaporeans: Completely divided and confused. English speaking Chinese are high-class, Mandarin speaking Chinese are 2nd-class, dialect speaking Chinese are seah suay.
All the tru blue Singaporeans feel they are been cheating by the PAP.
ENGLISH speaking white Singapore only benefited a minority group. Do you know who are they?
Ha ha ha!
All these are just talks and for show, Singapore is not a demoracy but worse than North Korea in their ways, whats worse is the hypocrisy in portraying as a free, open, meritocratic place :).
The journalists are not asking critical-enough questions! The principle of GRC is commendable but you can easily make it small, 2-3 member GRCs; and not mammoth 5-6 members where 4-5 people are just riding on the coattails of an anchor minister.
The principle of proportional representation is often regarded as fair because it emphasizes mathematical proportionality and equality of votes, ensuring that each party's share of seats more closely reflects its share of the popular vote.
However, under Singapore's current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system, combined with Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs), the PAP derives significant advantages from electoral disproportionality. A shift to a genuinely proportional group-representation model would likely reduce the extent of its parliamentary supermajority.
Consequently, many political observers argue that the People's Action Party (PAP) is unlikely to support the adoption of a proportional representation system, as such a reform could substantially diminish its electoral advantage and parliamentary dominance.
This guy useless.He just followed LKY's commands like a good soldier.Now reaping the benefits in retirement for him and his family by just executing LKY's commands and not challenging him in order to ensure he can put rice on the table.There were examples like Devan Nair, JBJ, Francis Seow for him to see what would happen if he even tried to question or be in independent person.He is just a yes-man.He should have just been an academic.
12:30 Teh Cheang Wan was a trusted and influential cabinet minister. Yet LKY did not hesitate to allow CPIB investigate allegations of his corruption. Within weeks, Teh committed suicide and LKY was greatly saddened (he detailed this in his memoirs) but LKY was unwilling to compromise with PAP’s reputation.
The problem isn't GRC by definition of race representative, the problem is gerrymandering through GRC system. That was something they quietly slot in under the ruling govt to dictate their winning margin. They have done their math.
All are bullsit
It’s more like the govt keeps on bringing up the Racial card.
Police last time wear shorts, girls used to give birth at 15 years old , what’s the point of repeating the past? The question is whether Singaporeans are represented well in parliament. Until we see a more balanced representation – not 90% of parliament only winning 65% of votes the incumbent are unfair and dirty players
So it was initially about Malay MP representation and not other races. Then enlarged to include different levels of society and groups. Would the fact that President Tharman Shanmugaratnam was successful in being elected against other candidates with a landslide margin of 70.41% of the total valid votes that it is perhaps time to refine this criteria and mechanism. Noting that President Tharman is highly qualified and a well like figure in Singapore.