Singapore must not fear unusual, innovative approaches to future challenges, says Jayakumar at book launch

Prof Jayakumar said he also wanted to dispel the myth that Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew brooked no dissent. In fact, Mr Lee was willing to listen to contrary views, including from younger ministers.

Mr Lee believed what was important was not that his own proposed solution be accepted, but to formulate a solution that was workable for the new guard, he said.

Prof Jayakumar said the book also opened a window into Mr Lee’s far-sighted approach to governing Singapore, which went beyond his own premiership and his own lifetime.

Pointing to the GRC scheme to ensure minority representation, Prof Jayakumar said it was criticised by opposition politicians at the time as a scheme to “fix” them.

He said Mr Lee had actually been thinking about minority representation as far back as the 1970s, when he wrote to all PAP parliamentarians expressing concern for how Malay parliamentarians could be effective in predominantly Chinese constituencies.

While the book’s narrative centres on Mr Lee’s Cabinet, Prof Jayakumar said “the same approach of the leader encouraging his ministers to speak and in fact give alternative options” continued when he served in the governments of Mr Goh Chok Tong and Mr Lee Hsien Loong.

While many unknowns remain in the future, one certainty is that Singapore’s small size and unusual and unique circumstances were present at the country’s independence, and are still present today, said Prof Jayakumar.

“How we got here is partly because the leadership in the past took important, innovative, unusual and unique decisions and pivotal decisions,”  he said.