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Singapore Form of Government
The Republic of Singapore is a city-state with a
governing
structure patterned on the British system of parliamentary
government
(see
fig. 11). In 1989 legislative power was
vested in
a unicameral Parliament with eighty-one members who were
elected
for five-year terms (or less if the Parliament was
dissolved
prematurely). Members of Parliament were elected by
universal adult
suffrage from forty-two single-member constituencies and
thirteen
group representation constituencies. Voting was compulsory
for all
citizens above the age of twenty-one. The group
representation
constituencies elected a team of three members, at least
one of the
whom had to be Malay, Indian, or a member of one of
Singapore's
other minorities. The group representation constituencies,
introduced in the 1988 general election, were intended to
ensure
multiracial parliamentary representation to reflect
Singapore's
multiracial society. In another departure from the British
model,
members of Parliament elected on a party ticket had to
resign if
they changed parties. A 1984 amendment to the
Parliamentary
Elections Act provided for the appointment to Parliament
of up to
three nonconstituency members if the opposition parties
failed to
win at least three seats in the general election. The
nonconstituency members were chosen from the opposition
candidates
who had polled the highest percentage of votes. The
seventh
Parliament, elected on September 3, 1988, and meeting for
the first
time on January 9, 1989, included one elected opposition
member and
one nonconstituency member.
Singapore had only one level of government--national
government
and local government were one and the same. The form of
the
government reflected the country's unusually small area
and modest
total population of 2.6 million. Below the national level,
the only
recognized territorial divisions were the fifty-five
parliamentary
constituencies. Members of Parliament thus performed some
of the
same functions as municipal aldermen in foreign cities and
often
won political support by helping to find jobs for
constituents or
doing other favors requiring intercession with the
powerful civil
bureaucracy. The single-member constituencies varied in
population
from 11,000 electors to as many as 55,000; some of the
variability
reflected population movement away from the old urban core
and out
to new housing developments.
As in all British-style polities, the government was
headed by
a prime minister who led a cabinet of ministers of state
selected
from the ranks of the members of Parliament. The cabinet
was the
policy-making body, and its members directed the work of
the
permanent civil servants in the ministries they headed. In
1989,
the cabinet comprised fifteen members. Below the prime
minister
were a first deputy prime minister and a second deputy
prime
minister. They were followed by the ministers in charge of
such
functional departments as the Ministry of Finance or the
Ministry
of Defence and by two ministers without portfolio. The
prime
minister could reassign his cabinet members to new
portfolios or
drop them from the cabinet, and successful ministers
headed several
progressively more significant ministries in their
careers. There
were thirteen ministerial portfolios in 1989: defence,
law, foreign
affairs, national development, education, environment,
communications and information, home affairs, finance,
labour,
community development, trade and industry, and health.
Some
portfolios were split between different ministers. The
first deputy
prime minister (Goh Chok Tong) was also first minister for
defence.
The minister for communications and information (Yeo Ning
Hong)
also served as second minister for defence (policy). The
minister
for trade and industry (Brigadier General (Reserve) Lee
Hsien
Loong) was concurrently second minister for defence
(services). The
foreign affairs and law portfolios were similarly divided.
The cabinet met once or twice a week; its meetings were
private
and confidential. Administrative and staff support to the
prime
minister and cabinet was provided by the Office of the
Prime
Minister, the officials of which included a senior
minister of
state, a political secretary, a secretary to the prime
minister,
and a secretary to the cabinet. The Office of the Prime
Minister
coordinated and monitored the activities of all ministries
and
government bodies and also directly supervised the Corrupt
Practices Investigation Bureau and the Elections
Department. Each
minister was assisted by two secretaries, one for
parliamentary or
political affairs and the other for administrative
affairs. The
latter, the permanent secretary, was the highest ranking
career
civil servant of the ministry.
The constitutional head of state was the president, who
occupied a largely powerless and ceremonial role. The
president was
elected by the Parliament for a four-year term. He could
be
reelected without limit and removed from office by a
two-thirds
vote of Parliament. In turn, the president formally
appointed as
prime minister the member of Parliament who had the
support of the
majority of Parliament. On the advice of the prime
minister, the
president then appointed the rest of the ministers from
the ranks
of the members of Parliament. The president, acting on the
advice
of the prime minister, also appointed a wide range of
government
officials, including judges, and members of advisory
boards and
councils.
In 1988 the government discussed amending the
Constitution to
increase the power of the president. A white paper
introduced in
Parliament in July 1988 recommended that the president be
directly
elected by the people for a six-year term and have veto
power over
government spending as well as over key appointments. It
also
proposed an elected vice president with a six-year term of
office.
The proposed changes originated as a device intended to
permit
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who had been prime minister
since
1959, to retain some power should he retire, as he had
hinted, and
assume the presidency. No specific dates for the proposed
constitutional change were given in the white paper. As of
late
1989, no action had been taken.
Data as of December 1989
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