Thursday, April 05, 2007

Two types of democratic systems

There are two types of democratic systems practiced around the world:

* British system - the members of parliament (elected by the citizens) will choose a prime minister and other ministers from among themselves; usually from the winning party or a coalition

* American system - the citizens choose the members of the Congress (ie Parliament) separately from the President; the President will choose his secretaries (ie ministers) from the entire population, but they have to be approved by Congress

In recent years, I come to favour the American system. The Congress can focus on passing the laws. The elected President can choose capable persons from the entire population to run the government.

The system in Singapore is largely based on the British system. In recent years, we have modified it to have an elected President, but he has certain specified but limited responsibilities.

It is now possible for us to move towards the American system. A future elected President can appoint his ministers from anywhere in the country (including the members of Parliament). This will give a wider base to choose the leaders to run the country.

Just a thought.
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1 comment:

Edwin said...

Hi,
We should not be too biased on what system we should go into.

Firstly, we need to know how we should define democracy? How do we view democracy and what benefits it would bring us.

I have met people who were from Iraq and Iran and also from the Uzbekistan. To them, democracy means nothing when people are dying for the wrong reasons and when children are starving on the roads. There are many lessons we need to learn. We ask ourselves, is Iraq any better today when the dictatorship from a ruler has ended?

We have to be very careful as your view of the American System has its flaws. No one system is perfect.

The only perfect system is when you have very capable people with foresight to run the country and be able to adept fast to the changing tides due to globalization.

I had the opportunity to listen to a very good lecture in 2004 delivered by the former PM of Malaysia - Dr. Mahatir, where he touched on the topic of democracy. It is fairly long, and I think this is a very good lecture.

http://www.smu.edu.sg/HRH/

I leave the readers here to decide what type of democratic system do we want in Singapore.

Edwin Wuu

April 06, 2007 11:58 PM

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