One solution, the creation of a one-party state, is closed off. Although the PAP has defined itself as a national movement (1983), it was forced by adverse reaction to concede that this was not a step towards elevation of the PAP to the ``leading role'' given to communist parties in pre-1989 Europe. A severe reduction in the PAP vote at the ensuing election (1984) emphasized that Singapore, with a fairly solid 30–40% opposition vote,23 could not go down that road. As a result, the PAP has had to countenance the legitimacy of parliamentary opposition, and has sought instead to control it.
The second option, the creation of Non-constituency MPs, designed to give a seat in Parliament to the most successful of the unelected opposition candidates, an apparently generous gesture, did not solve the problem, as it proved unpopular among the opposition parties, who prefer to win their seats rather than rely on government charity; and the provisions, applying only where there are less than two opposition MPs, have been overtaken by events.
More recently, the creation of Nominated MPs (the third option), currently four in number, has met with greater success. These ``NMPs'' can participate in debates and vote.24
In case of PAP members deciding to cross the floor, an amendment introduced to deal with the politics of the tubulent 1960s ensures that they will not be able to do so without forfeiting their seats in Parliament.25Indeed PAP MPs who vote against the Government, or even abstain, are threatened with expulsion from the party.
Any notion that legal development has embraced political opposition, is however, quickly contradicted by the constant legal harrassment of opposition MPs and the tough action taken against those who express opinions outside the arena of party politics. Not only the Singapore Law Society, but also NGOs and individual critics, have been targeted, especially in ``Operation Spectrum'' in 1987, in which 29 people, mainly Church workers and social activists, were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act, accused of having mounted a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the Government.26This action outraged international opinion. At present, however, there are no ostensibly political detainees in Singapore.
(c) Succession. The notion of an elected presidency to replace the nomination of the President by Parliament was conceived as a means of buttressing PAP rule, or at least the main tenets of PAP rule, and in particular as a means of preventing the dissipation of Singapore's substantial reserves. Although it was thought by most that this post was one into which Lee Kuan Yew would ease himself as he talked more and more of giving up executive power, in fact he remains as Senior Minister, and a former Deputy Prime Minister, Ong Teng Cheong, has been elected. His single opponent in the 1993 election was a little-known former civil servant.
The main problem with such an elected President is of course how his powers relate to those of the Government itself. The structure created in Singapore is unique. The President is endowed not only with an electoral mandate, but with a formidable array of powers. He can withhold assent to certain Bills, veto Government loans, senior appointments and budgets of statutory boards and Government companies, and exercise various other powers. In short, by use of his purely negative powers, he can bring government grinding to a standstill at any time.
Another problem with this reform, from the PAP point of view, was always that the presidential election might become a hustings for opposition candidates. This possibility has been preempted by imposing onerous requirements on presidential candidates, so that opposition politicans of the present echelon at least, are unable to stand. The rules are designed so that only members of the PAP-led political, administrative and business elite, can stand for election.
Concluding this part of the paper, I would observe that law as social engineering in the field of constitutional law in Singapore has been largely a success, judged in terms of the objectives of reforms.27 However, there is a kind of ``smartness'' about these laws which could lead to their removal at some time in the future. By ``smartness'', I mean that they appear to be programmed to produce not just in general, but rather too precisely, the result desired by their creators. This is a characteristic of many of Singapore's social engineering laws. They are the kind of laws which in the short term seek out their targets with relentless accuracy, negotiating every obstacle placed to thwart their efficacy; but in the long term they may be shorn of legitimacy by their very smartness—they are too smart for their own good. Perhaps they will disappear to the same part of the legal underworld which is reserved for Henry VIII's Star Chamber and the laws of the communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe. They do not provide a framework within which any future Government, even perhaps a PAP Government, would feel happy.