Why is there a general sentiment that Singapore is

not a democracy?
Probably because most people in Western countries confuse the idea of
democracy (or to be pedantic, representative democracy) with that
of liberal democracy. Singapores elections themselves are free and fair,
Singaporeans have alternatives at the polls, have secret ballots, and
individual voters are neither investigated nor by-and-large retaliated against.
Voting is even mandatory and considered a patriotic duty, and voter turnouts
are routinely 90% and above, putting many Western countries to shame.
So why, then, do many Westerners believe that Singapore doesnt conform to
their definition of democracy?
The trivial, and largely wrong, answer that is often given by critics of
Singapores political system is to point to the dominance of the PAP. But that
is facile. The LDP has had a similarly almost unbroken hold on power in Japan,
and no one really contested the fact that Japan had a democratic
government. In fact, even absent other measures the PAP has done a
remarkable job of being a dominant party by virtue of political tactics that in
many other places would be considered both legitimate and masterful. These
include:

Solidly building, reinforcing, and constantly working towards a

reputation for prioritizing national prosperity over selfaggrandizement
Never being tied to a fixed ideology
Co-opting the most popular policies and politicians from opposition
parties, thus often robbing them of electoral relevance and
harming the cohesion of opposition parties while simultaneously
strengthening their own platform
Strategically timing elections to maximize support
This has allowed the PAP to be a remarkably effective political organization,
which bends according to the prevailing winds of public opinion but stays
firmly rooted. All that being said, this is not all that the PAP has done to
maintain dominance, and it is this that gives foreigners pause.
The Singapore government, which at this point is still synonymous with the
PAP, has a stranglehold on most forms of public discourse and on the judicial
system. It uses its sovereign control over these institutions to make it an
extremely hostile environment for opposition politicians. For example:

The GRC system, ostensibly meant to increase minority

representation, effectively Gerrymanders voting districts to such an

extent that PAP dominance in parliament can be highly

unrepresentative of actual voting tallies. In the 2011 election,
widely considered to be a historic rebuke to the PAP, the popular
vote tallies had a roughly 60% vote percentage going to the PAP (a
highly respectable amount in most any other democracy) but 81/87
elected seats went to the PAP, a result that has miniscule chances
of occurring in a properly representative system
PAP politicians are extremely litigious whenever they are subjected
to what would in most liberal democratic nations be considered
routine politicking or opinion. The PAP government has enabled this
in large part by refusing to modernize their colonial-era defamation
laws, removing safeguards such as jury trials and the right to
appeal to the Commonwealth Privy Council, and establishing case
law that fails to protect what in other Common law and Civil law
jurisdictions would be protected speech. Judges that do not
consistently support this are quietly reassigned.
In particular, subjective value judgments about various politicians
are often litigated and defamation awards are often in the millions
of Singapore dollars. Ive heard the objection made before - often
by Singapores own politicians, too - that politicians should not tell
lies. However, its instructive to bring up an example here. In the
1990s, the ertswhile head of the Workers Party in Singapore,
Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, said that Lee Kuan Yew is not fit to
be Prime Minister. He was sued for civil defamation and paid
damages in the millions. In the United States and the UK this would
be protected speech, not tortious, on many different levels: It is a
clear statement of opinion rather than of fact, the person being
spoken about is a public figure and thus could win only under the
restrictive actual malice standard which involves reckless
disregard of the facts that goes well beyond journalistic factchecking, and arguably it is also hyperbole which is also protected
in the US (though not to the same explicit extent in the UK).
In addition, Singapores defamation laws do not shield the
publishers, printers, or other facilitators (such as internet hosting
websites) from damages as in most liberal democratic countries. In
fact they go farther and do not even allow newspapers or other
media organizations to legally shield their sources.
As a result, Singapores political discourse is stifled as opposition
politicians must be careful not to step on the toes of PAP figures,
engaging in vigorous self-censorship. The most prolific and partisan
politicians, whom you might otherwise expecting to be leading

their parties, are often legally barred from contesting in elections

because they are constantly bankrupt from defamation judgments.
The Singapore press is a frequent target of defamation lawsuits,
both in the domestic and foreign press. As previously mentioned,
media organizations are not shielded by merely being facilitators,
publishers or distributors of material. As a result a strong culture of
self-censorship is prevalent in Singapore, and all major newspapers
whether foreign or no will toe the government line. Very little local
political debate makes it into newspapers, which either largely
ignore local politics (if foreign) or consistently present the
government viewpoint.
Anecdotally the government engages in some borderline shady
tactics by making it difficult for people to attend rallies for
opposition parties, changing venues and such, but as Im not a
Singapore citizen and have never actually participated in their
political process, opposition or otherwise, all I have are secondhand
accounts.
The Singapore government still has the Malayan Emergency-era
Internal Security Act on the books, amended since but still
essentially a license to indefinitely detain without trial or judicial
review anyone suspected of negatively affecting public order or
security. The powers it gives have not been used in decades, but it
still remains a Sword of Damocles hanging above all potential
politicians.
Now lets make this clear: While this makes Singapore a
decidedly illiberal democracy, it is still a democracy. Singapore also does not
engage in most of the more heavy-handed tactics you see in truly repressive
democracies. No armed thugs beat up political rallies. The government
doesnt stuff ballot boxes or intimidate groups of voters. Opposition
politicians still hold rallies, albeit ones carefully scripted to avoid defamation
lawsuits. For that matter, opposition politicians dont mysteriously disappear
and end up with their bodies tangled in the mangroves on Pulau Ubin or
blocking seawater intakes on Jurong Island. Electioneering is orderly, people
dont get hurt, and at the very worst the impediments to candidates
contesting jurisdictions are of the Kafkaesque bureaucratic variety, not of the
make you an offer you cant refuse variety.
All of the pedants pointing out that Singapore has all of the trappings of
democracy are technically correct (the best kind of correct). But they miss
the substance of what makes Westerners uncomfortable. Singapores
democracy is a mature, well-oiled, sparkling clean version of what Viktor
Orbn wants for Hungary, PiS seems to want for Poland, or Recep Tayyip
Erdoan wants for Turkey: A self-perpetuating government form with all of the

trappings of Western-style legitimacy but none of the dangers of losing

power.
And heres the real killer: unfortunately for the Western idealists, this form of
government is very stable so long as the party in power is deft enough to
maintain relative prosperity, remain reasonably non-corrupt, and doesnt
become completely deaf to the concerns of their people.