\n<\/p>\n
The book covers the deliberations that led to the establishment of the NCMP scheme in 1984, GRCs in 1988 and the elected presidency in 1991.<\/p>\n
Prof Jayakumar said the People\u2019s Action Party and its government have always kept a tight lid on internal deliberations, and this is sound practice for the principle of collective responsibility in Cabinet to work well and to avoid leaks by disgruntled office holders.<\/p>\n
But it is a pity that the public does not have insight into how Cabinet discusses important matters, he added.<\/p>\n
The book therefore \u201clifts the veil of secrecy to an extent\u201d on Cabinet deliberations, the dynamics among its personalities, and the process of compromise and consensus.<\/p>\n
Prof Jayakumar said he also wanted to dispel the myth that Singapore\u2019s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew brooked no dissent. In fact, Mr Lee was willing to listen to contrary views, including from younger ministers.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Prof Jayakumar said the book also opened a window into Mr Lee\u2019s far-sighted approach to governing Singapore, which went beyond his own premiership and his own lifetime.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cfix\u201d them.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
While the book\u2019s narrative centres on Mr Lee\u2019s Cabinet, Prof Jayakumar said \u201cthe same approach of the leader encouraging his ministers to speak and in fact give alternative options\u201d continued when he served in the governments of Mr Goh Chok Tong and Mr Lee Hsien Loong.<\/p>\n
While many unknowns remain in the future, one certainty is that Singapore\u2019s small size and unusual and unique circumstances were present at the country\u2019s independence, and are still present today, said Prof Jayakumar.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow we got here is partly because the leadership in the past took important, innovative, unusual and unique decisions and pivotal decisions,\u201d \u00a0he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The book covers the deliberations that led to the establishment of the NCMP scheme in 1984, GRCs in 1988 and the elected presidency in 1991….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--i-asm_1t--\/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\/08\/12\/img_7269.jpg?itok=sjO3VhHK","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14511,1813,353,611,2562,18813,28116,713,22,13666],"class_list":["post-76008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-approaches","tag-book","tag-challenges","tag-fear","tag-future","tag-innovative","tag-jayakumar","tag-launch","tag-singapore","tag-unusual","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76008","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=76008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}