AT YESTERDAY'S dialogue, writer Catherine Lim posed MM Lee this question: Sir, in the event of a serious threat of a freak election, would you d the unthinkable, that is, send in the army?" This is an edited extract from Mr Lee's reply:
"You look at our record and the moves we've made. Let me put it simply like this. First, we maintain a system which gives any opposition the opportunity to displace us peacefully, We allow the system: we've not interfered with the civil service, the judiciary, parliamentary proceedings, the police and so on.
If you can win an election, so be it. If at some point we are not able to find a team which can equal an opposition team, on that day we deserve to be out. If we become corrupt, inefficient, can't deliver, we're out.
What if we have a freak election, as we may well have? Many voters say openly: "In my family, three of us voted for you, but two against, just to let you know that we want an opposition voice." In that situation, you may have a freak result. That worries me.
So we've set in place a President with blocking powers. Any opposition that comes in will find that he cannot touch the reserves, otherwise you can promise the sky and spend the money. And all our hard earned savings will go in five years.
Second, you cannot change the top officials without the President's consent. any raiding of the funds must be approved by the President who has a council of presidential advisers to advise him yes or no.
Now, why do we do all these if we we expect to overturn an election?
We expect that if we are voted pout, to stay out, and hope within one term, that new government and unable to deliver, will be out. And there's enough core competencies and funds to enable a fresh PAP government to revive the system.
I spent 15 years thinking about these safeguards and finally persuaded my younger colleagues that we need needed these because they can't guarantee that each time they will produce a better team than the opposition just because you've done so in the past.
I don't see any problem in the next election, and probably the election after that. But if we don't get a good team in the election after that and the opposition does get a good team together, we are at risk.
And how had he answered Catherine Lim's question?
"You look at our record and the moves we've made. Let me put it simply like this. First, we maintain a system which gives any opposition the opportunity to displace us peacefully, We allow the system: we've not interfered with the civil service, the judiciary, parliamentary proceedings, the police and so on.
If you can win an election, so be it. If at some point we are not able to find a team which can equal an opposition team, on that day we deserve to be out. If we become corrupt, inefficient, can't deliver, we're out.
What if we have a freak election, as we may well have? Many voters say openly: "In my family, three of us voted for you, but two against, just to let you know that we want an opposition voice." In that situation, you may have a freak result. That worries me.
So we've set in place a President with blocking powers. Any opposition that comes in will find that he cannot touch the reserves, otherwise you can promise the sky and spend the money. And all our hard earned savings will go in five years.
Second, you cannot change the top officials without the President's consent. any raiding of the funds must be approved by the President who has a council of presidential advisers to advise him yes or no.
Now, why do we do all these if we we expect to overturn an election?
We expect that if we are voted pout, to stay out, and hope within one term, that new government and unable to deliver, will be out. And there's enough core competencies and funds to enable a fresh PAP government to revive the system.
I spent 15 years thinking about these safeguards and finally persuaded my younger colleagues that we need needed these because they can't guarantee that each time they will produce a better team than the opposition just because you've done so in the past.
I don't see any problem in the next election, and probably the election after that. But if we don't get a good team in the election after that and the opposition does get a good team together, we are at risk.
What the heck was he talking about?
And how had he answered Catherine Lim's question?
