To take my mind of the slow and depressing unravelling of our federation, and poke my nose in our neighbors affairs, I have to ask: does anyone else think that the Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan is showing a stronger leadership vibe than Prime Minister Lawrence Wong?
To be frank, i don't have much knowledge of the politics of Singapore, but I did see a few short videos of Vivian appearing in my feed, and I have also seen a few reels of Lawrence on screen, and I must say that one of the impressions that it made on my mind is that Vivian seems to exude a stronger leadership vibe than Lawrence.
In Malaysia, this would almost certainly be dangerous.
In the late 90s, when Anwar started showing a strong leadership vibe, to the point that it was rivalling Mahathir's shine, Anwar would find himself sacked, humiliated and imprisoned.
Around 2018 or 19, after the 2018 election, when Azmin was serving as the Economic Affairs Minister in Mahathir's cabinet, I saw Azmin projecting a strong leadership vibe in a video that I saw of him.
After I saw it, I even commented that Anwar is not going to be happy looking at Azmin projecting such a strong leadership vibe, when Anwar at the time, had just been released from prison and held no important position in party, country or government, although the party and coalition that he created won the 2018 election.
Not long after that, a scandalous video of Azmin was released and it is continuing to dim his political fortune even to this day.
For a combination of reasons, our neighbors down south have never had a political crisis.
One reason is because the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew was so strong, that even a decade after he was gone, his influence can still be felt in Singaporean politics.
I don't know whether people realise this or not, but Lee Kuan Yew truly a very very very special leader.
If you scour through the entire pages of history, i doubt you will find more than a handful of leaders like him.
He is so special, that I can't name a single world leader in recent times that can match his boundless energy, piercing intelligence, great daring or unshakeable conviction. The only leader that I think can think of that comes close to Lee Kuan Yew is probably Putin, although I think that Lee Kuan Yew is still a superior to Putin.
Lee Kuan Yew has created such a foolproof and almost faultless political arrangement in Singaporean politics, that even 10 years after he died, the political arrangement he has made has functioned with supreme efficiency without much of a hitch.
One of the reason why his arrangement is so faultless, is because it places everyone exactly where they are supposed to be - meritocracy was not just a goal in Singaporean politics, it is a reality.
The first time I feel that there might be a glitch in the matrix is now, when I compare, at least at a surface level, Premier Lawrence Wong with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.
But other that the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore also has the fact that it cannot afford to make a mistake, keeping the excesses of politicians, which runs amok in the rest of world, in check in Singapore.
Had I noticed what I had noticed between Lawrence and Vivian in Malaysia, I would have predicted a political contest, that might be so vicious that it might tear the country apart, within months or a couple of years.
But in Singapore, maybe you will notice nothing more than a ripple.
Maybe.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.