THE Guyana government is being criticised for the way the country is being governed. People accuse the government of being a dictatorship, yet these same people enjoy unlimited freedom to attack the government.  So it can’t be a dictatorship.  The current situation in Guyana no way, not even remotely approaches that which governed Guyana from 1966 thru 1992 when political movement was limited. Guyana is in an election mode and the parties are freely campaigning without any hindrance.  I just returned from Singapore which goes to the poll on May 7 to choose a new legislature for a five-year period.
Singapore, a multi-ethnic state similar to Guyana, has succeeded in managing its ethnic problem but allowing limited freedom.

The subordinated ethnic groups, like the Malays and Indians, are not pleased with their status – with Indians seeing themselves as third class  Malays as second class and with Chinese being viewed as the privileged class.

But they can’t complain as is the case in Guyana, where groups freely lobby for resources and frequently voice their complaints publicly. Political freedom is not absolute as in Guyana.
Credit for the relative calm, peace and harmony in Singapore goes to its founding leader and former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who kept a tight shift that has been continued by his two successors with the current PM being his son, Lee Hsien Loong.

LKY serves as mentor minister and his immediate successor is senior minister. Singapore is the most advanced of “third world” countries.  In fact, it is really a first world country.  I was in the city state last month and have visited almost annually for the last twenty years. It is a fantastic place and highly recommended for a visit.
There is no doubt about the electoral outcome as the ruling party will triumph again as it has done ever since Singapore was created and held its first elections in 1965.  The real question is whether the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) will win all the seats.  The opposition controlled two seats in the dissolved assembly. The new parliament will have 87 seats and there are 2.3 million voters. Unlike most other countries, voting is mandatory.
Unlike in Guyana, the city state has a peculiar electoral system and many people believe the electoral campaign is not really free as in modern democracies. There are 12 single-member constituencies and the other 75 seats are divided up into 14 Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs), which opponents describe as a ploy to deny them representation. The GRC is a vote bloc that elects several candidates together, usually with a popular candidate like LKY.  As I discovered in an informal survey, the elder statesman is extremely popular, more than his son and President Nathan, an Indian and his college friend. The PM is also leading a GRC that will sweep several MPs into office.
When I went around making queries, voters asked me “are you with the opposition” – an expression of the fear they have of the political authority unlike in Guyana where people are free to associate with their parties.
In Singapore, for the first time, there will be a three-way contest which makes it likely for PAP to make a clean sweep. But the ruling party does not like the idea of governing without an opposition to give a semblance of democratic debate in parliament.
A few of the seats do not have any opposition and have been declared won by the PAP — from one GRC. The 86-year-old elder statesman LKY has won re-election, but an unprecedented 82 of the 87 are being contested. The opposition parties have avoided fighting each other and are seeking mainly to win space for “alternative voices” in Parliament.
They hope to win many seats to have an effective opposition to have “a First-World Parliament”.  But that is hardly likely given that the system is stacked against them and the ruling party has done an excellent job during its tenure in office, similar to what some say in Guyana concerning the progress the country has made over the last 19 years.