Heng Swee Keat, the heir apparent to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is probably hoping he could take back what he said last week. In ‘O’-Level terms, the former Education Minister got an F9 for what he said at a public forum.

At the Nanyang Technological University last Thursday (28 March), according to various reports, Heng was posed a pointed query on an issue that is a perennial slippery banana for the government. Alluding to Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s popularity among voters in his own ward, as well as a 2016 poll commissioned by Yahoo News Singapore that showed he was the top choice among Singaporeans to be the next PM, a member of the audience asked,

“Is it Singapore who is not ready for a non-Chinese prime minister, or is it the PAP who is not ready for a non-Chinese prime minister?”

A savvier politician might have prevaricated. The 57-year-old Finance Minister could have sidestepped the question, or perhaps talked about how leadership renewal requires younger men and women given that Shanmugaratnam is 62.

Instead, Heng turned to the People’s Action Party (PAP) playbook – a 10-Year series, if you will – and said, “I will say that it is a very positive sign that the young people will be quite comfortable (with having a minority PM), precisely because our policy of regardless of race, language, religion has been an emphasis in our system for so long.”

Heng then effectively suggested that older Singaporeans are less than colour blind when he added, “But if you ask me, that whether across the voting population, would that be the outcome, I personally don’t think so…My own experience in walking the ground, in working with different people from all walks of life, is that the views — if you go by age and by life experience — would be very different.”

So much for “regardless of race, language or religion” as the late Foreign Affairs Minister S Rajaratnam had envisioned when he drafted the final version of the Pledge. So much for “one united people”.

The more things change

View photos Screenshot of Heng Swee Keat during Singapore Budget 2019. (PHOTO: Yahoo News Singapore) More

Heng may have also said that Singapore would have a minority PM “at the right time”, but the damage had been done. The online reaction to Heng’s remarks was scathing, to say the least. Writer Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh accused the PAP of “let’s rule by fiat when it suits us and let’s defer to the electorate when it doesn’t.”

Many asked why Heng did not back up his words with statistics or studies. Others pointed out the apparent hypocrisy of the 2017 Presidential Election being reserved for Malay candidates, while the PM job is ruled out for minorities.

But then again, perhaps it was not truly a gaffe. It is important to note that Heng was somewhat echoing PM Lee’s words from 2008, when it was a very different political climate from now. Lee was asked at a dialogue with Malay grassroots and community leaders if the Republic was ready for a minority PM, specifically a Malay PM.

According to The Straits Times, Lee responded, ‘It’s possible. It depends on how people vote, on who has the confidence of the population. Will it happen soon? I don’t think so, because you have to win votes. And these sentiments – who votes for whom, and what makes him identify with that person – these are sentiments which will not disappear completely for a long time, even if people do not talk about it, even if people wish they did not feel it.”

In other words, a 4G leader – and the prospective PM, no less – was rehashing the ruling party’s tried and tested rhetoric when it comes to what it perceives to be uncomfortable issues.

What about moral authority?

The government has always been the self-appointed arbiter of discussions about issues of national interest. It shapes the narrative and is quick to slap down opinions that it sees as divisive or challenging its authority.

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