\n<\/p>\n
How to get more from the private sector interested in politics?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are two issues that need to be addressed.<\/p>\n
First, the ruling party needs to change its narrative about politics. Stop making it an almost impossible vocation that mere mortals are incapable of achieving.<\/p>\n
In the old days it was said to be a priesthood, whiter than white, and that without these leaders Singapore would collapse.<\/p>\n
The country did exceptionally well during that period and the men and women of that founding generation were indeed outstanding.<\/p>\n
But the circumstances that produced them were unique and the world and Singapore have changed irrevocably.<\/p>\n
A more down-to-earth sense of what the job entails has to come to terms with these changes, one that is more realistic about who you want to attract.<\/p>\n
There are two aspects of a minister\u2019s job: One is technical competence, having the ability to solve national problems and to provide leadership for ministries and their agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second is political, which in a democratic society means being a representative of the people who elected you.<\/p>\n
It means being able to identify with them, to understand their needs and serve them, and be able to communicate and persuade them to your cause.<\/p>\n
This is not easy and much depends on your character and temperament and your sense of public duty and stewardship.<\/p>\n
This aspect of the job does not require a superhuman. In fact you should be as human as possible, acting with humility and empathy, not arrogance and high-mindedness.<\/p>\n
You can be the most brilliant person and technically capable but if you do not have what it takes to do this representative part of the job well and are motivated by other things, the job is not for you.<\/p>\n
In fact such a person might do untold damage to the people and the country. It isn\u2019t easy to find someone who has both skill sets: technical ability and a strong sense of public duty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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How to get more from the private sector interested in politics?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are two issues that need to be addressed. First, the ruling party needs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--_hs0AmiF--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/07\/22\/95632.jpg?itok=b-aOLDeC","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5179,77,1126,27504,747,2651,1594,10615,5679,1209],"class_list":["post-73329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-cabinet","tag-cards","tag-commentary","tag-fasttracking","tag-limited","tag-play","tag-public","tag-servants","tag-shows","tag-wong","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}