Singapore - Singapore, which has a Chinese-majority population, one day can possibly have a minority race prime minister, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
However, Lee said, it would not happen anytime soon, local media reported Sunday, quoting him at a dialogue with about 350 grassroots Malay leaders here Saturday.
In the session, Lee was asked to comment on the recent outcome of the United States presidential election where Barack Obama became the first elected African-American US President.
"Can we one day have a non-Chinese, a Malay-Muslim prime minister? It`s possible. Will it happen soon? I don`t think so because finally you have to win votes," Lee replied.
He said there were sentiments such as who voted for whom and what made him identify with that person that would not disappear completely for a long time even if people did not talk about it or even if people wished they did not feel it.
Lee said Obama`s victory did not mean race was no longer an issue in the US, as poll results showed Republican John McCain secured most of the white votes while Obama scored with the Latin, Asian and African-American electorates.
The prime minister said the reality in Singapore was that race-based voting patterns would remain.
Lee said although the situation today was very different from two to three decades ago, it was still difficult to have a position where everybody was totally race-blind and religion-blind.
However, Lee said, local leaders must put national interests before their own racial community`s.
"That is why Singapore will not head down the road of electing people to parliament to represent the interests of their race, as is the case in Malaysia and New Zealand," he added.
On whether local leaders had difficulty balancing their community`s interests with national interests, Lee said: "If he is a Chinese, I want to ask him if he is a Singaporean who happens to be of Chinese descent or is he Chinese first, who happens to be living in Singapore."
He said Singapore was unlike Malaysia, as it did not have "a coalition government where there is a Chinese party, a Malay party and an Indian party, and then try to push and see who can push harder".
Lee said Singapore also did not intend to move towards a system of proportional representation as practised in New Zealand, where the small number of MPs voted in to represent Maoris could exact a price each time the government sought their support.
"But for Singapore, I think it would be the wrong thing to do. In Singapore, you come in, you have to think about the interests of Singapore," the prime minister said.
On the difficulty of finding Malay political talent, Lee said it was tough to find such talent across all the races.
Although the pool of Malay talent was bigger than what it used to be, the proportion of Malay professionals such as doctors, lawyers and engineers was still lower than the national average, he said.
Source:
http://www.bernama.com (November 09, 2008)
