Opposition leader wages lonely campaign

Agence France Presse
June 30, 2004
WASHINGTON



JAILED thrice at home for speaking in public without a licence, Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan pounces on any opportunity in the United States to criticise the human rights record and lack of western-style freedom in his highly-developed home country.
On a five-month fellowship stint with the US National Endowment for Democracy, a non-profit private group, Chee needled a red-faced Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on a local political issue at a public forum while the leader was on a visit to Washington last month.

Much to the embarrassment of the host, the Council on Foreign Relations, an irritated Goh flatly refused to answer Chee's charge at the forum that his government was marginalizing minority Muslim Malays in Singapore.

At another public forum on the role of America in Asia, Chee asked Singapore's ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh how the United States could help promote press freedom in Singapore.

Since he came to Washington in March, the 49-year-old Singapore Democratic Party chief walks the corridors of the US Congress pressing for democratic reforms in the tiny but wealthy Southeast Asian island nation, where the ruling People's Action Party makes no bones about its conviction that full-blown western-style liberal democracy is not suited for Singaporeans.

Chee said he was fighting an uphill battle at home and abroad trying to convince people of the need for democratic reforms in the city state.

"I find it tremendously difficult to get Singapore on the radar screens of governments or NGOs because of some myths that had developed about Singapore to be regarded as a model of success by developing nations," said the US-trained neuropsychologist.

"Hong Kong, China, the Middle East and Indonesia are all beginning to cite Singapore as some kind of a model but my message to them is: be careful," he said at a public forum entitled "Singapore: Asia's Standard-Bearer for Authoritarianism?" organized by the New American Foundation, which encourages research on various issues.

Chee cited a letter Goh wrote to him rejecting his request for government funds to run a centre promoting democracy.

Referring to a survey by Berlin-based financial watchdog Transparency International, Goh, according to Chee, said in the letter that Singapore was already widely recognised as an open society which practised transparency and democratic accountability.

"This is a myth," Chee said, complaining that public money, including the state-run pension fund, was invested by the government with little transparency and "the use of the death penalty is shrouded in secrecy."

Amnesty International says Singapore is believed to have carried out the highest number of executions per capita in the world since 1994.

Chee also questioned Goh's assertion on democratic accountability in Singapore, saying the country arbitrarily arrested and threw people in jail indefinitely without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act.

"When you talk about democratic accountability, you must at least have freedom of speech. No protests, no public speeches are allowed without a permit," he said.

Chee has been jailed three times briefly after he tested the government by speaking in public without applying for a permit.

He said in terms of media freedom, a 2000 survey by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders group showed Singapore 144th among a list of 166 countries, ranking even lower than Zimbabwe.

On the judiciary, he said the respected International Commission for Jurists had stated that the Singapore leadership had used defamation proceedings to silence opponents and seriously undermined the rule of law.

In 2002, Chee was found guilty of defaming Premier Goh and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew over questions he raised during the 2001 general elections concerning what he claimed was Singapore government's 10-billion-dollar loan to Indonesia in 1997.

Goh and Lee said the loan was never disbursed and claimed damages, saying Chee's allegations implied they were dishonest.

Chee could be disqualified from running in the next election in 2006 if he loses his appeal.

The High Court last year rejected his appeal for a court trial in the defamation case and he was ordered to pay unspecified damages.

Chee said the United States, a key ally of Singapore, should use its influence to prod the city state to be more open.

Opposition: Singapore democracy 'a myth'

July 01, 2004

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040630-120235-5420r.htm

Opposition: Singapore democracy 'a myth'

By Hannah K. Strange
United Press International
Washington, DC, Jun. 30 (UPI) -- Singapore has long been touted as a shining model of efficiency and progress for developing countries.

Yet democracy is a myth even though this tiny city-nation may be the financial success story of Southeast Asia, according to opposition leader Chee Soon Juan.

Juan, secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, who was
speaking Tuesday at a forum hosted by the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, is currently being sued by senior
minister Lee Kuan Yew for defamation.

During the 2001 general election, Juan asked, in public and without a permit, of the whereabouts of $10 billion of the taxpayers' money, allegedly lent to Indonesia's Suharto regime in 1997. The senior minister and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong immediately filed a lawsuit, accusing him of implying dishonesty in governmental dealings.

Unable to find a willing lawyer, Juan was forced to represent
himself. However, he was not required to go to trial. The plaintiffs applied for a summary judgment and were awarded the case, with damages of $500,000, without ever going to court. The payment will bankrupt him, he said. Those with bankruptcies cannot run for public office.

Such lawsuits are "the stuff of legend" in Singapore, according to
Juan. In 1997 defamation suits were filed against veteran opposition leader Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, who in 1981 had broken 16 years of one-party rule by getting elected to Parliament as a representative of the Worker's Party.

Jeyaretnam, said Lee Kuan Yew in 1986, had to be politically "destroyed" for his opposition to the system. He was
finally declared bankrupt in 2001 after a series of court actions
spanning 15 years. As such, he was expelled from Parliament, barred from practicing as a lawyer, running in elections or taking any active part in campaigns.

Singaporeans live with the understanding, said Juan, that "anything that resembles any kind of growing resistance will be very quickly taken care of." The country has flexible libel laws and a judiciary that, according to a recent U.S. State Department report, has a questionable relationship with the ruling People's Action Party.

These laws set the conditions for what Amnesty International called in a statement three years ago "politically motivated libel actions further restricting peaceful political activity and eroding the right to free speech."

Acting as a further deterrent to dissent, said Amnesty, is the
knowledge that no opposition leader or activist has ever successfully defended themselves against the PAP.

Journalists, as well as politicians, are subject to enforced silence. In Singapore, according to a country report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, "State control of the media is so complete that few dare challenge the system and there is no longer much need for the ruling party to arrest or harass journalists." Both broadcast and print media are dominated by companies either owned by or with close ties to the state.

Even foreign correspondents, said the Committee, "have learned to be cautious when reporting on Singapore." The International Herald
Tribune, Bloomberg News, the Economist, Time and the Asian Wall
Street Journal are just a few who have faced defamation actions
brought by the PAP.

This year in reports, Amnesty has also expressed concern with
detentions, torture and ill treatment in Singapore, a country with
the highest rate of execution in the world, three times higher than the next nation on the list, Saudi Arabia.

Detention without charge is prevalent under the Internal Security
Act, and has been utilized against many opposition leaders, said
Juan, including Chia Thye Poh, an opposition MP with the Socialist
Front who was imprisoned for 32 years without charge. Poh was finally released in 1998.

Singapore -- a country which Electionworld calls a "pseudo-
democracy" -- does have parliamentary and presidential elections
every four years. However, many international organizations,
including the U.S. State Department, have expressed concern regarding their conduct. The PAP, says the State Department, "has used the government's extensive powers to place formidable obstacles in the path of political opponents," and maintains political dominance "in part by manipulating the electoral framework."

In a country report on human rights it cites the 2001 practice of
drastically altering the borders of constituencies just 17 days
before the election. In 1997 and 2001, the PAP threatened the
electorate -- 86 percent of whom live in government housing -- that those who voted for the opposition would not receive funds for the upgrading of their estates. For the last presidential election in 1999, only one candidate was finally declared eligible. There is no independent election commission.

The opposition, said Juan, "just want a voice." He calls for "genuine free and fair elections" and a free media -- "a system where you can get a genuine assessment of what people want." Wednesday he was to meet at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, where he is a visiting fellow, with Lorne Kraner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. He plans to ask for greater public awareness, support of NGOs and pressure from the U.S. government, whose ties with Singapore have warmed in recent years due to the government's support for the "war on terror."

"There are a lot of issues, particularly with freedom of speech and political dissent," a State Department official said. Meeting with opposition leaders, he said, informed the State Department "which issues we should be pressing." Action, he said, was "mostly bilateral" and substantial programs or public efforts are absent. "We have a good relationship with Singapore," he said, "but at the same time we do still actively engage. ... We are outlining what we think the issues are."

A spokesperson from the Embassy of the Republic of Singapore in
Washington declined to comment for this story.

Singapore Said Facing Rise in Unemployment

Associated Press
Singapore Said Facing Rise in Unemployment
07.04.2004, 02:06 AM

Wealthy, high-tech Singapore faces a serious and growing problem of structural unemployment as older and less-educated workers struggle to find work, says a senior union leader, who is also a government minister.

"The new jobs that are coming onto the market, coming with new investments entering Singapore, are not suitable for workers, the older workers .... who are less technically savvy," said Matthias Yao, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress, or NTUC.

Structural unemployment refers to those who can't find work because they don't have the skills. It affects most modern economies to some extent.

"There is going to be a lot of structural unemployment, and it is going to grow," Yao, who is also a senior minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, told The Associated Press in an interview late last week.

Singapore has been more successful than many of its Southeast Asian neighbors at promoting growth - but Yao's warning reflects official concern over the possible emergence of a group of less-educated "have-nots."

Singapore's union movement has close ties to the long-ruling People's Action Party government. Unionists are sometimes ruling-party members of Parliament. The NTUC head usually holds a Cabinet post.

The country's jobless rate for March, the latest figure available, was 4.5 percent - a high level in a society accustomed to extremely low unemployment.

The long-term jobless rate - those without work for at least 25 weeks - was 1.5 percent. The indicator, a useful proxy for structural unemployment, has climbed fivefold from 0.3 percent a decade ago.

Yao, who spent several years as a political adviser to Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, said older workers need to be retrained - possibly in service jobs to meet the needs of highly trained, high-tech workers.

Singapore's government has been aggressively trying to develop high-tech industries such as biotechnology in an attempt to promote growth.

The island of 4 million people, which has long enjoyed one of the world's highest standards of living, faces competition in its manufacturing sector from other Asian countries such as China, where development is booming but wages remain relatively low.

Yao said unions - and the government - were also pressing companies to make their pay systems more flexible so monthly wages and annual bonuses can be swiftly adjusted to reflect changes in the economic climate.

"We have gone through several recessions, and we have found that if wages are not flexible enough, companies will take the easier way out to manage their manpower costs, which is to retrench people," he said.

Singapore slings a little caution to the wind

Andrew Harding
BBC correspondent, Singapore

The people of Singapore are used to doing exactly what they are told.
But the reins of the nanny state are relaxing... ever so slightly.
The man on stage was singing a song about hamsters. It was, shall we say, a bawdy song. The animal welfare officers would not have approved. Nor, you might have thought, would the government of Singapore. After all, this is the great nanny state, the place where Playboy is banned, jay-walking is almost unthinkable... and where nanny is not known for her risqué sense of humour.

And yet, the songs continued.

There was one about a sheep and another about Jesus - neither exactly tasteful. The audience in the beautiful, government-funded theatre, roared with laughter. I looked around me in the dark - a well-dressed couple were still giggling about the sheep. Could it be that Singapore is starting to loosen up?

Western influence

Tiger Lily - the group singing the songs - was British, not local. But that is not the point. In the past, the state has sought to shield Singapore from all potentially corrupting influences like chewing gum, and Cosmopolitan magazine, and Sex in the City.

But today, the authorities are beginning to invite them in.

Five minutes walk from where I am sitting now, the walls of the Singapore Art Museum are plastered with pictures of glistening flesh, apparently sprayed with every imaginable bodily fluid.

The exhibition, by the high-camp French duo, Pierre and Gilles, was even opened by a government minister.

Then there is the chewing gum ban - the one fact everyone seems to know about this small, immaculate country. It is still in force and you can go to jail for importing it illegally.

But if you are determined to chew, you can now register and get medicinal gum at a pharmacy.

It is not exactly revolutionary, but in a cautious way the authorities are experimenting with change - cultural change, not political.

Like clockwork

It is a strange feeling for me, coming to such a meticulously governed country after 13 years in the former Soviet Union and Africa.


A small notice from the proprietors of the restaurant warned customers that they will be fined if they are greedy

I have just moved here from Kenya, where rules and regulations are usually treated like casual suggestions, or obstacles to be avoided.

In Singapore everything just works. My rubbish gets collected from the house every morning and the plumber calls to apologise if he is running 15 minutes late. A pothole would probably make the evening news.

And then there are the rules...

The other night I sat in a restaurant on Orchard Road, picking plates of sushi off the miniature carousels winding round the room.

On the wall in front of me, there was a small notice from the proprietors warning customers that they would be fined if they were greedy and took more plates than they could actually eat.

Singaporeans are used to being told what to do... and obeying. It is part of the deal.

Sing-along-a-protest

In the course of a few brisk decades, the ruling party has built them a clean, air-conditioned consumer paradise out of a tiny patch of jungle.

In return, the population is expected to forgo a few personal freedoms like gum, and true multi-party democracy.

Most people are happy with the deal, and why not? It has brought them one of the highest standards of living in the world.

But a few are starting to grumble... politely.


Thank you to the censor... the scenes you're chopping

Royston Tan has been doing his grumbling in a big white rabbit suit to the sound of Abba songs. He is an award-winning film-maker; a 28-year-old, whose recent gangster movie - 15 - sought to show that there is a seamier side to life here. The authorities were not amused. The censorship board insisted on substantial cuts to the film and its sound track.

I met up with Royston a few days ago. He was wearing a big smile and a T-shirt with the words "disco sucks". He chuckled as he explained how he had hit back against the censors.

His chosen weapon - a musical.

He and some of Singapore's best-known artists joined together to produce Cut, a blast of manic satire about a film-buff bumping into the chief censor in a supermarket, and raving enthusiastically about her work.

The chorus joins in Abba-style, with songs like "Thank you to the censor.. the scenes you're chopping."

Royston makes his cameo appearance in the rabbit suit, singing along to a George Michael tune.

So, I asked, did the Singapore authorities appreciate Cut?

Royston smiles again and shakes his head. "But things are changing fast here," he says. "Not long ago, no-one would have dared to have made a film like this."

What is more, the censors approved it... uncut.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 3 July, 2004 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3861209.stm

Published: 2004/07/03 12:32:51 GMT

© BBC MMIV

PAP tactics emulated elsewhere

PAP tactics emulated elsewhere

The following BBC report does not say so explicitly
but it's implicit for those who are familiar with the
PAP and it's control over the local media.

In fact, take away any reference to Zimbabwe in the
report and you won't be faulted if you think it's
about the control freaks in the PAP government and
their stooges in the local media! So I've replaced Zimbabwe with Zingapore.

Editor
TheOptical
------------------------------------------------------
Zingapore media loses its voice, 2 July 2004

By Alastair Leithead
BBC, Zingapore

Driving through Zingapore listening to the radio, or
watching television in the evenings, all you see or
hear is Zingapore Broadcasting Corporation, the state
controlled media.

Unless you have access to short wave radio or can
afford satellite TV, which few people can, you only
get one side of the story, and that is the
government's.

Combine that with the way the independent press has
been silenced and you realise the government is only
telling the people what it wants them to hear.

There really is not a voice for opposition or
criticism in the country.

'Fiction writing'

"Sometimes they just completely invent stories," said
Andrew Moyse, who runs the Media Monitoring Project
Zingapore, an independent organisation based in the
capital Harare.

"During the run-up to the presidential election they
claimed for weeks that there were anthrax attacks
against ruling party officials and they were all
utterly fictitious.

"In fact it ceases to become journalism, it's just
fiction writing - propaganda fiction writing."

The project monitors the news content of the private
and government-controlled media.

One of the workers said that the presenters of the
news programmes hardly believe in what they are
saying.

"They will tell you there is no choice as a journalist
as there is just nowhere to work and times are hard -
so in the end they just take their salary and lie," he
said.

There are many state-controlled papers, but few
independent voices left.

What used to be the biggest selling daily in the
country - The Daily News - was closed down last year
along with the Daily News on Sunday, under the
government's controversial Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act.

Information gap

Its editor William Saidi believes the main aim of the
act was to destroy his newspaper.

"The Daily News had overtaken the government's
newspaper The Herald in circulation and was accused of
influencing the elections in 2002, so as some form of
punishment the government decided they would ban the
Daily News.

"There are people who come up to me in the street and
ask: 'When is our paper coming back' - there is a now
huge gap in information," he added.

This gap makes life very difficult for the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, which cannot get its
message out to the people.

State media does not report its viewpoint or its
criticism of the government.

"Freedom of expression is limited to a few weekly
newspapers read by a tiny fraction of the population
with perhaps circulation of 200,000," says John
Robertson an independent economist based in the
capital Harare.

"The government knows that it has the votes wrapped up
because it can get to them with radio and television
and it has absolutely prohibited any form of
opposition in that territory."

Parliamentary elections are to be held next March -
and unless changes are made soon, the media will be a
weapon in the hands of the ruling party.

{The BBC is banned from reporting inside Zingapore.
Alastair Leithead is now back in South Africa after
his clandestine visit.}

China cracks down on SMS

From sources I have read, in the academic arena, Singapore is regarded as the leading edge for authoritative governments wishing to deal with new technology in order to curtail freedom of speech. In fact it is often stated that Singapore is teaching other south east asian governments how to monitor personal communication, therefore violating civil rights that are enshrined within the United Nation declaration of humans rights...


Go on sms the following to your friends and conduct a live experiment... " gathering of 100 people at bugis mrt for democracy, bring weapons." Bet the cops are there before you are. Remember the flash crowd incidences in Singapore. The story is that on the third 'Flash Crowd' the police were all ready waiting for them. How can they know and mobilise so quickly?

online news for online journalists
3 July 2004


China cracks down on SMS

Posted: 2 July 2004 By: Jemima Kiss
Email: jemima@journalism.co.uk

The Chinese government is extending its sophisticated surveillance network to monitor the content of mobile text messages (SMS), reports press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF).

A system produced by Chinese technology firm Venus info Tech will allow the authorities to filter messages and detect keywords or phrases which, they say, will detect 'false political rumours' and 'reactionary remarks'.

"The Chinese authorities are making ever greater use of new technology to control the circulation of news and information," said RSF.

"The international community should react against this hardening by the Chinese regime."

China is already believed to have more than 2,800 surveillance centres for SMS traffic and also employs 30,000 people to monitor and censor web content.

Nearly 100 million text messages are sent in China each year, and mobile phone ownership has reached 60 per cent.

Leader vaunts Singapore's political system

http://www.iht.com/articles/526964.html

Agence France-Presse
Monday, June 28, 2004

Singapore's unique political system must be maintained for at least another 30 years to avoid South-Asian-style disunity, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said in remarks published Monday.

Shortly after returning from a week-long visit to Pakistan,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Goh told members of his People's Action Party that the trip had renewed his conviction in Singapore's political structure.

"I come back even more determined that we should keep our system of political self-renewal," The Straits Times quoted him as saying late Sunday.

Goh, who has led the country since 1990, has said he will hand over power this year to Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore's only other prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew.

The transition is expected to be smooth and maintain the vise-like grip on power that the party has held since the British introduced self-rule in 1959, followed by independence in 1965.

Singapore practices a form of democracy in which the press has to report in the "national interest," rallies are mostly banned and elections inevitably end in crushing majorities for the governing party.

Goh said his trip to South Asia, which coincided with the abrupt resignation of Pakistan's prime minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali, had shown him how politicians can pull their countries apart.

Lee Hsien Loong

What others say
Some foreign media excerpts of PAP's selection of Singapore's new leader.
Jun 5, 2004

BBC
Few analysts expect a radical change in government policy.
(Outgoing prime minister) Mr Goh Chok Tong, who was once written off as a weak, transitionary figure - a mere seat-warmer for the Lee family - has become popular among ordinary Singaporeans.
His deputy, on the other hand, is seen, like his father, as a stern, authoritarian figure.

The Age, Asustralia
Asia Editor, Mark Baker
The Lee dynasty has cemented its dominance of Singapore politics for another generation with the endorsement of Lee Kuan Yew's eldest son as the country's next prime minister.
The elevation of Lee Hsien Loong, who is Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister and chairman of the central bank, will tighten the Lee family's grip on political and corporate power..
But there is speculation Mr. Lee (Kuan Yew) will announce his retirement once his son is installed as prime minister..

Nation (Thailand)
Editorial
For at least another generation, Singapore will be moulded by the Lee family..
There is no question the Lee Hsien Loong is an intelligent, capable and experienced bureaucrat..
The government has through various public relations efforts tried to soften the younger Lee'ss stern image but it is hard to escape the perception that he is a hard chip off the old authoritarian Blood.
In a speech in January seen as giving an outline of his plans Singapore, Lee echoed his father while warning political opponents of their fate if they became too vocal. "They are fully entitled to (criticise), but the government has to rebut or even demolish them," he said.
It is precisely this kind of thinking that makes Lee's elevation worrying because he is so much like his father. Such ncompromising leadership was perhaps needed to transform Singapore from a malarial swamp to the most modern city in Southeast Asia, especially at a time of political volatility.
But if Singapore is to prosper in the future it will need to allow more input from more voices in society, not a population that from pre-school awaits direction on every aspect of their lives from how many children they can have to how they should save their money from a father-knows-best government; it will need a strong parliamentary opposition to question and scrutinise policy.
Ultimately, it will need a people who are weaned off the idea that they need the Lee family.
Jun 5, 2004
The Little Speck

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

"The King is Dead, Long Live the King"
31 May 2004

People's Action Party (PAP) Press Release
LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION

The Central Executive Committee of the People's Action
Party met on 29 May 2004 and decided that Deputy Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong will be the next Prime
Minister when Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong steps down
as Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Goh had earlier told the Ministers that
now was a good time for the hand over, given that the
economy has recovered and is growing strongly. He
suggested that the younger ministers meet to choose
his successor. A group of ministers met on 22 May 2004
and unanimously nominated DPM Lee Hsien Loong to be
their next leader.

A caucus of PAP Members of Parliament held on 28 May
2004 unanimously supported the choice of DPM Lee as
their leader to succeed Prime Minister Goh. The
Central Executive Committee then met on 29 May and
endorsed this choice.

Prime Minister Goh will announce in July the date of
hand over, after his return from an official overseas
trip.

WONG KAN SENG
SECOND ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL
ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE'S ACTION PARTY
CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

A post that was put on line quite some time ago is republished below...
The 'charismatic' issue facing the Lee family has become entrenched at least in their own psyche. The continuing dominance of Lee offspring in the large economic institutions in Singapore seems to allude to a rather old and tested impetus of transition of power from one generation to another. The argument from the powers that be is that 'they' are the most able. Do they claim that the qualities of their father have been genetically passed on to them, by chance of birth and genetic imprint? Surely the 'nature/nurture' debate has more than 'genetics' as an answer.

In his famous typology of forms of authority, Max Weber distinguishes the traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal types. Charismatic authority disrupts tradition, and rests only on support for the person or leader. Weber defines charisma as 'a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as leader' (Economy and Society, 1922).

Yet we are told the selection process is based on principles of 'meritocracy'. The soon to arrive hand over of power to Lee Junior will result, if not Singaporeans becoming aware of the dynastic under-pinning of the structure of authority in Singapore, then the non-Singaporean 'economic herd' becoming aware of it in all its tainted glory. And the 'economic herd' is a jittery species. Investment in Singapore has already taken a turn for the worse.

Weber viewed charisma, as a force of social change but it is unstable. Many will feel that it is their duty to obey the leader. However, as Weber puts it, 'from a substantive point of view, every charismatic authority would have to subscribe to the proposition, 'It is written... but I say unto you..."'

Constant intervention in disputes between the SIA and pilots seems to imply this motivation. Can one man or family dictate policy, policy that alters electoral boundaries, Universal Humans Rights, and employer-employee contracts at will?

Charismatic phenomenon is unstable and temporary. In the longer term, he or she will die. For that reason, charismatic authority is often 'routinised' during the life time of the leader and succeeded by a bureaucracy vested with rational-legal authority or by a return to the traditional structures that have now become infected with the charismatic impetus.

The authorities in Singapore would like us to believe that it has been replaced with 'rational-legal', but the placing of the charismatic leader's son in power will undermine such an attempt. The coming hand over of power will need to be handled extremely carefully. Currently there is no question of power going to other cabinet members and so the PAP seems determined to go ahead with 'the plan'. But as soon as power is handed to Lee junior the international press will throw the spot light on the process and the process needs to stand up to scrutiny that M.P.s in Singapore do not have to face in local press.

The local media may be able to screen the nasty comments aimed at the process from the gaze of Singaporean's, but the 'economic herd' is beyond the PAP's authority. The people of Singapore have taken blow after blow in the current economic slump, if it is exacerbated by 'the plan' of the PAP, things can only get worse. A testing time is on the horizon. The full might of the PAP's authoriy and dominance will swing in to action to dampen discussion within the country, and Internet activity will be heavily scrutinized. Recently introduced legislation seems to be gearing up for a showdown.

Open Networks, Closed Regimes

Open Networks, Closed Regimes