Sunday, May 08, 2011

Nominated Ministers

It is time for Singapore to introduce of appointing ministers who are not Members of Parliament. Read my  article posted here.
Posted by at

6 comments:

DareToAct said...

Agree only if we have only SMCs and proportional representative system. Otherwise, PAP will most likely have 2/3 majority and can nominate whoever they want to NE Ministers.

May 08, 2011 1:58 PM
Singapore's 5 Minute Investment Diary said...

Personally, this gets my vote for the most innovative idea in strengthening our nation's political structure.

Fully support the idea of nominated Minister.

May 08, 2011 4:50 PM
symmetrix said...

Having a referendum is a good idea, but knowing this govt for what it is worth it may not happen. Referendum will reveal the true feelings of the ppl about govt policies, and this govt does not want that.

The last time a referendum was held was to seek public opinion whether sg should join Malaysia or not in 1963.

Oh, how I long for referendums.

May 08, 2011 6:24 PM
william said...

Appointment of ministers who are non-MPs, if allowed, must be based on merit and open to members of opposition parties as well, unless the law is such that only nonpartisan members of the public can be appointed. But then the question is who is ultimately enpowered to appoint the Minister?

In my view, Singapore is not ready for this until there is an electoral reform, including fixing the electoral boundry and changes can only be made under specific condition. eg. In Germany electoral boundry can only be changed when the population has increased or decreased to a certain predetermined level.

May 08, 2011 6:52 PM
Vincent Sear said...

Frankly, I'm against the idea of nominated minister. It's a political job and s/he must have a political base of support. Otherwise, s/he will be beholden to his/her nominator instead of the people. The people on top with power to nominate or reject will become override democracy as kingmakers. Who's to define talent and competency? It's the people in a system of democracy if we still want it and believe in it.

People with talent and competency wanting HR evaluable jobs should send their CV to HR department of the company they prefer for assessment and interview, not stand for election. In an election, lose is lose, lost is lost. Nomination back as minister kills the spirit of democracy.

May 09, 2011 4:23 PM
Tan Choon Hong said...

@ VS Lingam

As I gathered from the net (my memory fails me even though I voted on this), the referendum was not whether to join Malaysia or not, but couched so that the citizens would choose one of 3 ways to join Malaysia. Whichever option we selected, we had chosen to join Malaysia!

May 09, 2011 11:32 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Blog Archive