SDP - Apr 2015 - Tambyah and Chee speak at IPS: We need political change

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Professor Paul Tambyah and Dr Chee Soon Juan spoke last week at a closed-door session at the Institute of Policy Studies' (IPS) Glass Tank Conversation series.

The two SDP leaders spoke about the urgent need for democratisation and the SDP's effort to raise the level of politics in Singapore by coming up with alternative policies. They are seen here with Dr Gillian Koh, Head of Politics and Governance Research Cluster at IPS. Below are excerpts of Dr Chee's presentation:

You may be aware that productivity levels have been disappointing in the last decade and, try as we might, we have not been able to resolve the problem. We have thrown money at it, suggested a plethora of schemes including making the public pay for gizmos that private companies acquire and tweaking foreign workers levies – none of which have worked.

We have tried everything except one which, to my mind, is the most crucial. Such a measure necessitates that we situate our economic and political intuitions within the view that productivity is about human behaviour. And this is where economics ends and psychology begins. I have not heard of a situation – whether in an experiment or the real world – where anyone has brought out the innovative and productive best in people, be they employees or entrepreneurs, by instilling fear and conformity in the populace, a process that seems to be de rigueur with the PAP since in took over the reins of power more that half-a-century ago.

There is a reason why North Korea does not produce the Steve Jobs and J K Rowlings of the world. There is much take away from Dan Acemoglu's and James Robinson's book, Why Nations Fail, where they talk about extractive and inclusive systems. Where extractive institutions concentrate power in the hands of a few and extract resources from the many for the few, inclusive institutions emphasise pluralism and innovation. Inclusive systems, the authors note, have the ability to engage in creative destruction and ultimately be able to regenerate their economies.

There is little argument that Singapore relies more on extractive institutions than inclusive ones.

In Singapore, low productivity means that wages are kept low. To augment low productivity levels, the Government turns to bringing in foreign talent including cheap foreign labour. Such a measure exerts downward pressure on wages especially those in the low-income groups. This exacerbates income inequality and leads to unhappy and unproductive workers.

On the other end, the Government attracts the super-rich which exerts enormous pressure on the cost of living. The high cost of living is cited by younger Singaporeans as the main reason that they put off having children (or have fewer children). The PAP then cites the falling birthrate as justification to further loosen the immigration policy – and the vicious cycle continues.

It seems to me that there are several entry points that policy interventions can be made to arrest the downward spiral created by the morass of socio-economic problems that our society faces. One of them is something that I've alluded to earlier on and something which I have been talking since I got into politics nearly 25 years ago, which is that the system needs a good dose of democracy.

Our intuitions, our observations – our studied observations – and our experiences all point to the fact that openness, transparency and political freedoms – values embodied in the concept of democracy – will allow us to resolve, or at least facilitate the resolution, of the socio-economic problems that I have cited.

It is more than a correlation that the happiest and most productive peoples in this world live in the democratic and free countries.

The SDP has proposed other policy prescriptions in areas such as healthcare, housing, population growth, the Malay community, education, ministerial salaries and the economy.

Many people have wondered why the SDP has spent so much time and effort doing this when the electorate is generally uninterested in policy details. There is an important reason: Without putting our minds to thinking about the problem and coming up with workable and comprehensive solutions, how are we going to go to the people and, truthfully, say that the opposition has alternative ideas. And if and when we enter Parliament where will we have the ability to scritinize proposed legislation or even author and table bills of our own?

As much as we criticise the PAP for being authoritarian, it behooves the opposition to rise to the challenge of coming up – as democracy expects – with alternative ideas for Singapore. At the minimum, it prevents the PAP from levelling the accusation that the opposition is of sub-quality, unable to challenge it on substance.

The problem is not that the SDP has not articulated our vision as well as a set of policy papers to achieve that vision, the problem is how we get this information to the public.

On this point let me say that institutions such as the IPS has an important role to play. Recently, you hosted a public forum which Ministers Chan Chun Sing and Teo Chee Hean participated. Couldn't the same be done for the SDP instead of it being a closed-door discussion like this? I am not asking the IPS to promote the SDP's policies but rather to facilitate public discussion on some of these policies.

On an individual basis, policy analysts such as yourselves can hardly contemplate your neutrality at this critical juncture of our national development.

As long as we try to hide or diminish the contribution or the role of the opposition, we do a disservice to our nation and ultimately to ourselves and our loved ones.

Already if we do everything right starting tomorrow and reform everything we need to reform and get the system just where it ought to be, it will take us another generation to cultivate the kind of culture where we catch up with the societies which are innovative and moving ahead.

As it is, our politico-economic system is living on borrowed time and everyday we wait to reinvent our society and regenerate our economy is everyday we dig the hole a little deeper. And like time and tide, the global economy waits for no one.

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Video: A future full of hope and confidence​

Sdp is definitely going to b another vote spoiler w the loud hailer in charge.

Some time towards the end of 2010, Mr Chiam See Tong was having some problem in the Singapore Democratic Alliance of which he was Chairman. The differences finally reached a stage when he had to leave the SDA and withdraw his Singapore People’s Party from the Alliance.

On 20 December 2010, at the Face-to-Face Forum organised by The Online Citizen, Mr Chiam met me and said he wanted to talk to me. He invited me to his SPP Christmas party and later on to have coffee at his residence. At his house he revealed he intended to contest a GRC and wanted me to consider joining his team. I told him I had a better idea and invited him, his wife, Lina, and my friend, Bentley Tan, to my house a week later to listen to my proposal.

At that meeting, we explored how we could help Mr Chiam leave a lasting legacy. With his problems with the SDA, all of us acknowledged that the public perception of Mr Chiam as a one-man show needed to be addressed. We wanted the public to remember Mr Chiam as the leader he was when he fought his first political battles and built SDP into a potent force, not someone who could not hold the SDA together. He needed to show Singapore he was magnanimous and had big ideas.

Bentley and I thought that the best organized and most resilient party at that moment was the SDP. They had a very dedicated and focused team, strong ideological backbone and intellectual muscle, and good resources. From what we sensed, they were not averse to working with Mr Chiam. In their annual dinner, their thirtieth anniversary magazine and at rallies, Mr Chiam was always acknowledged as the founder. In their video presentation about the party, that fact was always emphasised.

Both of us felt that if Mr Chiam rejoined the SDP to contest the GRC it would be a momentous and historic moment. He would be like a patriarch returning home to his roots. It would be the ultimate symbol of opposition unity. There would also be sense of reconciliation and closure. We believed the reaction from the public would be positive.

We assured him we could get Soon Juan to accept the idea. The Chiams agreed to an informal meeting with Soon Juan to see how they could work the thing out. I contacted Soon Juan and gave him a summary of my proposal. He agreed readily to meet up with the Chiams.

As election fever was in the air, with reporters snooping around, we decided the meeting should not be in public and chose the then Assistant Secretary-General John Tan’s house as the venue.

When we met at John’s house in January, the initial awkwardness gave way to a frank and cordial discussion. We proposed that Mr Chiam return to SDP as a mentor-like leader to lead a team to contest a GRC. No decision was reached that night and everyone was asked to return home and think about it.

A subsequent meeting was held at Trishaw Coffeehouse in Hotel Royal. In a matter of days, Chee and Chiam no longer had any reservations about meeting in public. Mr Chiam suggested this place because it was nostalgic as his old SDP had used it for their CEC meetings and made many important decisions there. That night again no firm conclusion was reached.

Two weeks later, there was another meeting at the coffeehouse. Mr Chiam finally said he was keen to go with the proposal to contest the next GE under the SDP. Dr Chee had no objection. He even showed that he had thought the whole thing through by bringing out a master plan listing out the sequence of events for Chiam’s homecoming. He would draft out Chiam’s speech to be released the following week on the SDP web-news at 6pm. This would be followed by Chiam’s official return at the SDP Annual Dinner...


Read Dr Wong's chapter titled "Soon Juan: A Personal Perspective" as well as other contributors' views of, and dealings with, Dr Chee. The book will be launched on 11 April 2015, Saturday.