Singapore not run by PAP one day? It could happen: PM Lee

Could Singapore in the near future not be run by the People’s Action Party one day?

It could well happen, hinted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a recent wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times that was published online on Friday.

“It may not be one team in, one team out, it may be more complicated — you’re getting used to more complicated than that in Britain now,” he said while sitting down to the one-hour lunch interview at the Royal Garden Hotel in London last month.

Noting that he isn’t sure how a two-party system will work, PM hinted that the ruling party which has been in power since 1959 is beginning to contemplate the possibility of someday forming a coalition government.

At the last 2011 General Election, the opposition garnered nearly 40% of the popular vote although it won only six parliamentary seats out of 87.

When asked by the FT's Gideon Rachman, the paper's chief foreign affairs columnist, if he always knew he would enter the “family business” of politics, PM Lee bristled and replied, "No, I did not. It is not a family business".

Turning to the issue of Singapore becoming the new Switzerland as the new haven for the influx of "hot money", PM Lee was asked if he knew where the money was coming from.

“I don’t know where the money comes from,” he replied with what the journalist described as an uncharacteristic vagueness. “Our private banking wealth centre is gradually building up. I think some of it comes from the region.”

In between his entrée, main course of grilled fish and dessert of pistachio crème brûlée, Lee was also asked about how Singapore is often described by critics as a “nanny state”, and whether or not he feels it is “lightening up”.

“I think the fairways are wider. It doesn’t mean there are no limits but it means there is more free play,” said PM Lee, who added that people who claim they don’t want a nanny state are “in a conflicted state of mind”.

“On the one hand, they want to do whatever they want and not be stopped. On the other hand, if something goes wrong, they want to be rescued.”

He also added that “Singaporeans generally feel more secure these days,” referring to the city-state's extraordinary financial success after a long period of peace and economic prosperity.

But he cautioned: “One of our tasks is to remind them that this is the result of a continuing act of will and an appropriate sense of insecurity is very helpful. You don’t have to be paranoid but you do have to take risks very seriously."

Read PM Lee's full interview with the Financial Times here.