When Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong extended his congratulations to Mr Yukio Hatoyama on his Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) landslide election win, it is not lost on him that the losing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has run Japan since 1955 for all but 11 months in the early 1990s, 4 years longer in government than his owning ruling PAP. (read article here )
Lee told Hatoyama that the result “is a clear reflection of the Japanese people’s desire for change”, but is he aware of his own people’s desire for change? Apparently not. Last year, Lee told Singaporeans in no uncertain terms that a one-party state is the “ideal” form of government for “talent-scarce” Singapore.
In the aftermath of World War 2 in 1945, most Asian countries are ruled by dictatorships or one dominant party, but as their economies develop and the people become richer, the regimes collapse one by one with autocracies replaced by multi-party democracies.
In 1997, former political dissident Kim Dae Jung won the South Korean presidency, marking the first transfer of government between parties by peaceful means. In the same year, upstart Thai Rak Thai Party led by Thaksin Shinawarthra knocked off the decades-old Democrat Party from the Thai government.
Read rest of article here:
http://temasekreview.com/?p=12749
Lee told Hatoyama that the result “is a clear reflection of the Japanese people’s desire for change”, but is he aware of his own people’s desire for change? Apparently not. Last year, Lee told Singaporeans in no uncertain terms that a one-party state is the “ideal” form of government for “talent-scarce” Singapore.
In the aftermath of World War 2 in 1945, most Asian countries are ruled by dictatorships or one dominant party, but as their economies develop and the people become richer, the regimes collapse one by one with autocracies replaced by multi-party democracies.
In 1997, former political dissident Kim Dae Jung won the South Korean presidency, marking the first transfer of government between parties by peaceful means. In the same year, upstart Thai Rak Thai Party led by Thaksin Shinawarthra knocked off the decades-old Democrat Party from the Thai government.
Read rest of article here:
http://temasekreview.com/?p=12749
