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How do we avoid going in that same direction?
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was asked for his thoughts on the rise of populist governments and the implications for Singapore at a dialogue at the Singapore Institute of Technology on Oct 24. This is an edited excerpt from his response:
People thought the end of the Cold War meant they had won, and there was nothing to be solved in human society. The communists had failed, central planning had failed, liberal democracy, Western-style, is the answer for every country, and free markets - also extremely Western-style - are the solution for every economy. And it turned out not to be so.
If you look at the Middle East, it's a mess. If you look at Europe, the extreme parties which have emerged, right-wing and left-wing, are a response to its very difficult problems which the political system is unable to solve. So people lose confidence in the system, they lose confidence in their traditional political leaders and parties, and vote for the extreme left, extreme right.
So you have Mr Nigel Farage (leader of the UK Independence Party), the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Ms Marine Le Pen (president of the National Front) in France; while in other countries, we have left-wing movements, like the Podemos in Spain. These are not actually groups with solutions. These are groups which are really protesting: 'I'm letting you know I'm unhappy, please do something about it.'
Mr Trump reflects the same sort of view in America. His focus is not to provide an analytical solution to a complicated problem. His focus is to make a simple message that will resonate with the ground who are already very angry, and work them up so they vote for him and hopefully he becomes president.
But if everybody takes that approach in a democracy, then the president who is elected may or may not have solutions to the problems, and may or may not have the mandate to do the things that are necessary.
And in Singapore, we watch all this with concern and we have to ask ourselves how we can prevent ourselves from going in that direction. For 50 years we've been very lucky. We are still united, still proud of the country, still moving forward. But in another 50 years, can you be sure that, somewhere along the way, the driver will not fall asleep and go off the road into trouble?
That's one of the reasons why, when we talk about the political system in Singapore, we talk about having balancing stabilisers, so that in case something goes wrong, everything doesn't crash - like having a president who is elected, so that there's a second key for certain decisions. So even if the Government turns out to be unwise, the president is there and can prevent some bad things from happening.
So be aware that the risks are there, and you have seen what can go wrong in other countries. Better to try our best to not let it go wrong in Singapore. Keep it going right.