The Workers’ Party is campaigning for a “First World parliament”. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has responded by asking Singaporeans: “Do you want a First World government or a First World opposition?”
Why did he use the word “opposition” instead of “parliament”? Is it because there can be no question at all about which comes first: government or parliament?
In a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy like Singapore, the government is accountable to parliament. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was not directly elected to office by the voters. He holds power because he is the leader of the People’s Action Party, which has won every election since 1959.
Governments are not voted in and out of office by the voters in the Westminster system. The voters elect members of parliament. And whoever musters a majority in parliament comes to power. There’s no need even to win an election.
India has had several minority governments. Charan Singh served as prime minister from July 1979 to January 1980 and Chandra Shekhar from November 1990 to June 1991 not by winning general elections. They came to power backed by other parties in parliament and fell when that support was withdrawn.
Britain has also had prime ministers who came to office without winning a general election. Gordon Brown, who took over as prime minister from Tony Blair, spent two and a half years in office before calling an election, which he promptly lost, in May last year. The Tory Alec Douglas-Home also lost the only election he faced as prime minister. He got the job when Harold Macmillan stepped down for health reasons in 1963 and lost the elections next year.
More famously, Winston Churchill became prime minister not by winning an election but by opposing his leader. He opposed the then prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany and took over when Chamberlain resigned, after the outbreak of war, in May 1940.
Churchill lost the election after the war in 1945, when Clement Attlee formed a Labour government. Churchill became prime minister for the second time in 1951, when he did win an election, but stepped down in 1955, handing over to his deputy, Anthony Eden.
So, as we see, prime ministers can come to power without winning an election, if they are supported by the majority in parliament. The parliament holds the keys to power. It can make and unmake governments.
Such developments haven’t vexed Singapore, where the government is virtually synonymous with the parliament, with the ruling party holding almost all the seats in the legislature.
But the Workers’ Party campaign for a “First World parliament” has brought the issue into the open.
Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said having a “first-rate government” is more important than having a “First World parliament”. But that’s accepting the notion it’s possible to have one without the other. Isn’t that playing into the hands of the critics who claim Singapore is a rich country dominated by the ruling party?
Maybe not. Maybe in Singapore people can be asked to choose between a “First World parliament” and a “first-rate government”. We don’t have to wait long to find out. Only six more days to go before the polls on May 7.
Related posts:
