Translated: Spirit of Democratic System

As requested by some readers, the following is a translation of my Chinese article published in Zaobao today:

The spirit of the Democratic System

It is interesting to read about the discussion of “Democracy”in your paper's forum around 10 October, the celebration of the first success of Asian Democratic Revolution in China led by Dr. Sun Yat Sen. Since its during this period of celebration, I will start with Dr. Sun's theory of Democracy, i.e. The three principles of the people and the separation of Five Powers.

First of all, why would we want to talk about “Asian Democracy”? The ruling party PAP has always argued that we cannot just apply Western Democratic system on Asian societies because it is not compatible to Asian values. However, during the late 19th century and early 20th century, Dr. Sun Yat Sen has already provided an intellectual discourse on how to apply Democratic system that is suitable to one of largest Asian country, China. Although I do not agree with some of Dr. Sun's views, but I think Asian countries, including Singapore, could take Dr. Sun's discourse into serious consideration when implementing Democracy.

Although the process of democratic development is important, but we must ensure that the spirit of Democracy must be thoroughly enforce or implemented accordingly in the Constitutions as well as the execution process. Dr. Sun has been right on the spot in saying that Democracy is the balance between extremes, the total freedom Anarchist vs totalitarian rule. In any advanced society, total freedom values, Anarchist, cannot work. However, while we recognize the need of having a governing body in a society, modern Democratic society also recognize the potential ills that could be derived from a concentration of powers. This actually means that Democracy is built upon the “distrust” of human beings. This is because power could corrupt (human minds), absolute power corrupt absolutely but at the other extreme, total freedom would result in the demonstration of worse side of human beings.

This is also basically why Dr. Sun's revolution is unlike Western revolutions, never about “freedom” but about toppling the corrupt feudal system and build a system that is based no Democratic values and the separation of 5 powers. The importance of the separation (or rather, independence) of the 5 powers lies in the mechanism of REAL checks and balances. It prevents any individuals or ruling organization to monopolies power but at the same time, prevent any others to make use of the system's impeachment or legislative powers to prevent the normal functionality of the government. Throughout the whole revolution, it is all about the checks and balances of the powers. I will not comment on the success or failures of Dr. Sun's revolution but concentrate on on his Asian perspective of Democratic reforms.

The concept of Dr. Sun's 5 powers includes: Executive Power, Legislative Power, Judiciary Power, Power of Impeachment, Power of Examination. In fact, in Chinese ancient history, the concept of 5 powers has already existed. However, these 5 powers were concentrated under the courts of the Emperors. In comparison to the Western concept of 3 powers, the Chinese political administration is actually more advanced. This is because, other than the 3 powers, the Chinese have included another two important aspects of governance, the Imperial system of impeachment which acted as an internal checking mechanism, as well as the Examination system that aimed at selecting best talents to become court officials. These systems were set up to help the Emperor to implement a ruling system that would provide checks and balances within as well as selecting the best talents to help him rule the empire. Unfortunately, due to the nature of concentration of power, it normally led to problems of corruptions.

The fundamental problem lies with the rule of law/system vs human. If it is an totalitarian system, it will inevitably end up with the corruption under human rule. But it is not possible for the whole political system to base on books or rules only basically because it will inevitably involves human elements. Thus, the whole political views is focused on how to build a balanced system that would minimize corruption and at the same time, a selection process that would get the best people to join the government.

However, I cannot agree with Dr. Sun's concept of “Examination Power”. In his theory, all candidates for legislative representatives must go through a system of examination. This would mean that technically, the people do not have direct universal suffrage right on their political representatives. (Most likely it will end up with a total elitist system.) Dr. Sun might have advocated this rule basically because political awakening or awareness among the Chinese population may be lacking and this would prevent unscrupulous politicians from cheating votes. I do agree that all civil servants must go through a system of examination as a selection process to get good people to work in the government. But for representatives of people, I would prefer a more diverse representation from diverse background (instead of an elitist one).

I would say that this “Examination Power” should be a concept of “selection process” which would include “Power of Election”in the context of modern Democratic system. This would mean that the “Power of Election” must be separated and independently administered. i.e. The Election Department must be Independent.

Democracy is not what Mr. Lim's (a writer to ZaoBao on 11 October) deems to be, “majority rule”. Democracy emphasizes on people's power being adequately represented, powers of the system must be checked and the system must be balanced. If a ruling party systematically and relentlessly uses its monopoly of the parliament to amend the Constitution in a bid to ensure its entrenchment and continuous monopoly of power, then this isn't a compliant to Democratic principles.

In modern Singapore, we do not have any independent organization that is entrusted with the power of impeachment. Due to various reasons (not merely opposition parties do not have enough candidates) Parliament is monopolized by PAP and lost its function as a check on the government. On the other hand, the media could not perform effective checks on the government as well. Under all such circumstances, it is really undesirable for our long term development as a Nation.

In Western Democratic discourses, they have realized that there are weaknesses in “majority rule”. Such system of “majority rule” would end up with “tyranny of majority rule”. This is basically why in recent democratic development history in Western worlds, they have slowly shifted towards proportionate representation. Proportionate representation is relatively more rational. For example, if a GRC has 40% of voters that voted the opposition, the present system would not be able to give these voters an adequate voice or representation in parliament.

In Western Democratic discourses, they have realized that there are weaknesses in “majority rule”. Such system of “majority rule” would end up with “tyranny of majority rule”. This is basically why in recent democratic development history in Western worlds, they have slowly shifted towards proportionate representation. Proportionate representation is relatively more rational. For example, if a GRC has 40% of voters that voted the opposition, the present system would not be able to give these voters an adequate voice or representation in parliament.

In conclusion, I would illustrate the following criteria for a mature democratic system to evolve:

1) Separation of 5 powers which includes power of elections/examination and impeachment/ media/ freedom of expression.
2)A complete political participation of citizens and the exercise of their voting rights.
3)The checks on the powers
4)The balance maintained in the system
5)The diverse representation of people.


We must seriously examine the potential harm that a prolonged monopoly of power could bring to our nation. It is very unhealthy to have a system that lacks real checks and balance for a long period of time. I believe we should first understand Democracy and come to the simple conclusion that we have now is far from being democratic even though it has elections. The only way to prevent concentration of power of corrupting the human minds and leads to the corruption of the government is to set up a truly democratic system.

Most important of all, we must see clearly that there are no contradictions or incompatibility between Asian values and Democratic principles. This should not be the reason to reject the implementation of democratic system. From Chinese ancient history, we could observe clearly that for Asians, we also have a concept of checks and balances in maintaining our political system. We are at a cross road of political development in Singapore and it is an urgent matter for us to reform our political system now. This is because we cannot anticipate how the present political system will evolve in the post-LKY era. We must ensure that Singapore's political system must develop and extend in a stable manner. I personally feel that only via building a real mature democratic system would guarantee long term political stability for Singapore.

Goh Meng Seng