Singapore’s vulnerable risk-free democracy

From James Gomez

The respected Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) group has consistently assessed Singapore’s domestic political risk as low. Since 1997, on a scale of between zero and 10, with zero being the best grade possible and 10 the worst, the city-state’s worst grade for domestic political risk was below 3 (PERC 2005). Singapore’s scores hover mostly around the 2 mark. PERC partly attributes Singapore’s low domestic political risk to the fact that it is “very difficult for a formal political opposition to unseat PAP [People’s Action Party] from power even if there were a vibrant multi-party system” (PERC 2005). This observation is shared by Freedom House, an international NGO that publishes an annual report on global trends in democracy: “Citizens of Singapore cannot change their government democratically” (Freedom House 2005).

Thursday, 13 April 2006


by Ooi Can Seng and James Gomez

to continue reading...

Singapore