Singapore must keep minority safeguards like GRC system, as 'racial undercurrents' persist: Jayakumar

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This is the first of three articles from CNA’s interview with former Senior Minister S Jayakumar, who recently launched his book Creating Three Unique Singapore Laws: An Inside Story. The book chronicles how the elected presidency, Group Representation Constituencies and Non-Constituency Members of Parliament were established through constitutional amendment.

SINGAPORE: Recent online vitriol against the Indian community shows “racial undercurrents” persist in Singapore despite decades of progress - which is why mechanisms to safeguard minority representation such as the Group Representation Constituency (GRC) system are still needed, said former Senior Minister S Jayakumar. 

“(The GRC system) will no longer apply when you and I can confidently say that race, language and religion are issues we never have to worry about again,” he said.

Online comments following the Nepal-Tibet disaster and Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) investment in Air India show that race remains a sensitive issue that can be exploited, he told CNA in an interview.

“We have made great strides on the government’s part, as well as on society's part, in moving towards greater understanding and harmony between the different groups, different communities.

“I'm old enough to have seen racial riots, and 10 years as home affairs minister, I had to deal with issues caused by race, language and religion. I would caution us to be more realistic,” he said.

He pointed to the last General Election, when Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had to make a strong statement about playing the racial card in the middle of the hustings.

More recently, Mr Wong, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Senior Minister K Shanmugam denounced “very vile and vicious racial slurs made by some Singaporeans against the Indian community” after the Nepal-Tibet disaster and the SIA investment.

ALTERNATIVES TO GRC SYSTEM

During the interview, Prof Jayakumar also spoke about how the GRC system originated from a “twin constituencies” proposal mooted by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 1982.

Under that proposal, two constituencies would be paired, with two Members of Parliament contesting together, one of them from a minority community. It was met with strong objection from some Cabinet members, including then-Environment Minister Ahmad Mattar.

"I am not in favour of the idea. We should avoid it if we can. As a Malay, I don’t think I would like to contest in any elections where my victory is guaranteed – not because I am a ‘strong’ candidate but because I have a so-called ‘strong’ twin brother to lean on," Dr Mattar wrote in a letter to Mr Goh Chok Tong, who had sounded him out as Mr Lee requested.

Prof Jayakumar then proposed nominating minority MPs. “We could empower the president, whenever there were insufficient numbers of Malay or minority members, to nominate Members of Parliament to make up certain numbers,” he said.

Mr Lee rejected the idea as even more demeaning, as the nominees would not have been elected by the people at all.

Then-Attorney General Tan Boon Teik suggested reserved constituencies for Malay candidates, which Prof Jayakumar said was also “objectionable and not acceptable to the minority community”.

“So you see, several alternatives were floated,” said Prof Jayakumar.

The breakthrough came when Mr Goh, who later became Singapore’s second prime minister, proposed widening the GRC system to include other minority communities beyond Malays. This addressed Dr Ahmad Mattar’s reservations.

The GRC scheme was eventually passed in parliament in May 1988, and introduced at the General Election later that year, with 39 seats across 13 GRCs, out of a total of 81 seats.

RESERVED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

In the same vein, Prof Jayakumar said he supported the idea of reserved presidential elections even before the constitutional commission officially proposed them.

Asked if reserved elections imply that candidates from certain minority groups could not otherwise win an open contest, Prof Jayakumar noted that similar criticisms were made when the proposal first emerged.

“But we have to be realistic,” said Prof Jayakumar. “In a presidential election, the whole of Singapore, in a sense, is treated as one constituency. All of Singapore are voting for one candidate, unlike General Elections where individual wards, different candidates are being contested. That has a different dynamic altogether.”

He acknowledged that President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, whom he called “an outstanding person”, was elected in an open contest. Mr Tharman, also a former senior minister, won the 2023 presidential election with 70.4 per cent of the votes in a three-way race.

“Can you be absolutely sure that in the next 30, 40, 50 years, you will have another minority candidate elected? So is it prudent to have a mechanism that ensures that?” asked Prof Jayakumar, stressing that a reserved election is a precaution that applies only if the situation calls for it.

While he hopes such topics will fade over time, Prof Jayakumar said Singapore should remain cautious.

“We have made great progress. But at the same time, we have to be clear-eyed that there are these racial undercurrents which may be exploited from time to time by some people. So because of that, it's better to put some mechanisms in place,” he said.