Eight years ago when Vivian Balakrishnan spoke at the REACH National Day Rally 2015 he asked his audience what kind of politician they wanted. He spoke about some kinds of politicians in other countries that I am pretty sure don’t exist. First example was countries where politics is just a sport. Like where ? He didn’t give examples. Apparently they don’t make hard decisions in those countries. I’d love to know where that is given that in France, an actual country, the late President Mitterand made fun of LKY and compared his job to that of a Mayor running a town in France. How do countries of that size and complexity manage to deliver enviable standards of living and freedom as well, if their politicians don’t make hard decisions? Here is another Minister just gaslighting Singaporeans. Let’s not forget, Singapore is just a city and our politicians skate on the surface and if anyone plays at politics it is them. Rather in the manner of the descendants of a family legacy who sit on the board of the family corporation merely playing at business.

Vivian then describes a second type of politician. A career politician who got into politics at university with the student union and climbed up the totem pole (sic) ( Yes he said “that, “Totem”. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.) According to Vivian this kind of politician rises to the top but has never held a job outside politics, has never struggled with running a business. Vivian and the audience were all agreed that no-one wanted that kind of politician. I could hardly believe the evidence of my ears. Err Hello! Hasn’t he just described our leader Lee Hsien Loong as within the category of full time politicians who have never had a proper job? Actually LHL is worse than the full time politicians Balakrishnan mocked. He was actually bred for the job in a kind of PAP captive breeding programme. He has never held a job outside his daddy’s firm and his meteoric rise to Brigadier General, in fact his entire path smoothed out for him suggests that he didn’t climb any pole, greasy or totem. He took the Golden Elevator along with Willy Wonka. The Golden Ticket. All obstacles cleared away. Obstacles, like people in the opposition who ask awkward questions.

This is the warm up to his speech. He brings up a straw man, gets everyone to agree, gets them on side then turns to the serious stuff. Honesty.

This is when Balakrishnan is most interesting. He says he makes no apologies for being “uptight about honesty,” Yes, Vivian is uptight about honesty. He even believes that because he is so uptight about honesty it makes him unpopular. I can think of other reasons he might be unpopular but let’s play his game.

I have embedded the video below. The caps and bold are mine for emphasis.

Vivian: (11;07) We are uptight about honesty. Because the moment we get dishonest politicians, DOESN’T MATTER FROM WHICH PARTY […] it is the beginning of the end. So, it may not make me popular. I will insist on honesty. `i will insist on declaration of conflicts of interests. I will insist on declaration of related party transactions.”

When Vivian said this I suppose he did not expect Singaporeans would ever be calling on him and Shanmugam to explain #RidoutGate. What happened to the INSISTING. I haven’t heard Vivian being uptight on this issue and proud to be unpopular by insisting on a declaration of conflicts of interest and party related transactions. “Mentioning to a colleague” is not equal to a declaration.

So why did Shanmugam and Balakrishnan think it was OK not to declare their conflict of interest? Particularly as he also said that in addition to competence and honesty a politician must have compassion. He posed the question voters should ask “Will he (the politician) care for my children and my children’s children?”

Singaporeans should ask themselves how much compassion Balakrishnan and Shanmugam have shown for our children. Occupying two of the largest plots of state land in SIngapore (26 Ridout Road is bigger than any of the parcels that URA recently put for auction) and the mansions sitting on them at rents that appear to be orders of magnitude lower than those for much smaller properties in the private sector. Is this not mismanaging or draining the reserves as helpfully explained by Indranee Rajah and Desmond Lee? Isn’t it unfair to future generations of SIngaporeans not to be maximising the value of the land? Isn’t it hypocritical to ask ordinary SIngaporeans to pay the full market value of the land when huge tracts are set aside and their full development potential not exploited?

So the three qualities that Vivian tells his audience they must look for in a politician.. Does he care, is he compassionate and is he honest? Ask yourself whether now, eight years later, you still believe he embodies all three?

Vivan also talks about delivering. Delivering for our children and the next generations. Shanmugam’s stewardship of SLA, appears to have been largely incompetent. Lee Kuan Yew called this under valuation of our land a raid on the reserves. Thats is why I wrote to The `President because I also think it is a raid on our reserves. Ask yourselves, has SLA and have these two Ministers in this instance delivered?

The PAP have long used this illusion of competence to justify why they must be paid stratospherically and why they must be paid several times the amounts paid to public servants in much larger and richer countries. Meanwhile the inequality gap between the richest and the lower income Singaporean gets wider and wider. The PAP must be stopped from using secrecy and non-disclosure to scare Singaporeans into believing that they must constantly cut back in order to prevent the reserves running out while an elite few manage them inefficiently and then appear to benefit.

Finally Vivian also tells us in this speech what will happen if we get politicians who are not uptight about declaring conflicts. What happens to those politicians who don’t follow his uptight standards on insisting on declarations?

Vivian: “If any of us ( PAP in Government) start taking liberties. It is not losing elections, it is jail or suicide.”

(This is a reference to Teh Cheng Wan) JAIL or SUICIDE. This seriously sounds off to me, like he is trying to intimidate the WP and surely he isn’t suggesting suicide as one of two inevitable results of being a dishonest politician? Suicide could be viewed as just another form of dishonesty and denying the victims justice. Suicide is illegal in Singapore and no one, let alone a Minister. should be raising it as an option. Those do not sound like the words of a caring and compassionate human being. These are the words of a bully.

There is of course another way to be uptight about declarations of conflicts of interest. That is a fully independent COI. Not one headed by your pal (see the picture of the pals below).

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Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam