Informative Travel Guide and Discount Hotels in Singapore by Royal Exclusive Travel

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As Singapore rules similar to the British system; the power of judiciary is in the hands of the Supreme Court which consists of the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Criminal Appeal. Subordinate courts include District Courts and Magistrates Courts which act as the hearings for some cases.

Today, Singapore is based on Westminster Model, a unicameral parliamentary republic having president as a ceremonial head of state, and in charge of the cabinet which consists of 14 powerful cabinet members led by the prime minister. The first president of Singapore was Ong Teng Cheong (a former deputy prime minister) voted by the universal suffrage in August 1993. The president can examine the government's exercise and investigate any cases of corruption under the Internal Security Act, and Religious Harmony Laws. As of the constitution's amendment in 1996, presidential powers recurred to prime minister and the president played less powerful role since then. 

Ong Teng Cheong's presidential term has ended in 1999 after working since 1993 and the replacement belonged to Mr. S R Nathan, a current president, on 1 September 1999. The voted president will hold the office for the six-year terms so that the national election must be held every six years and voting in elections is necessary. PAP has been surprisingly won the election since the tenure of Lee Kuan Yew until nowadays with the possession of 81 of 83 seats in Parliament

Prime Minister in Singapore is appointed by the Parliament as the head of the cabinet. The unicameral parliament is managed by 83 elected members and actually lasts for five years but a ruling government can denounce the parliament at any time if the corruption is infected. 

The government is run by Prime Minister while cabinet does represent majority of parliament. The present Prime minister is Goh Chok Tong who acquired the replacement of Lee Kuan Yew in 1990. Prime Minister Goh has promised to soften the stern atmosphere in Singapore for lessening the well-educated Singaporeans moving to Western countries each year. He always stressed on the importance of altering Singapore to a more democratic, consultative nation, yet his tolerant attitudes toward the too strict politicS made most citizens discontent and disappointed. 

Once Prime Minister Goh's ruling style was criticized as a reverse to his promise as it seemed to backtrack to autocracy and absolutism. Some people have analyzed the situation as being secretly manipulated by Senior Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. The most vivid speech by Prime Minister Goh represented absolutism was in his warning that the housing renovation project would be abolished if Singaporean voters vote for opposition parties. This truth really went against his promising future of the consultative nation.

Singapore's political structure is centralized authoritarian but paradoxically pragmatic, rational, and also legalistic. It can be considered as a nation ruled under the highly disciplined form of democracy. It is fair that the constitution provides the right to its citizens to change the government in the pursuit of democratic means; furthermore, every election is reliable, accurate, and clean. Anyway, the government possesses the right to do anything such as banning unregistered political conventions in order to limit the new opposition parties, or being a part of all media organizations in order to monitor critics concerning political subjects.

All of these great works are credited to PAP settled in 1954 as a left-wing party ruling under authoritarianism that somehow makes Singaporeans content as the economic prosperity has brought them good lifestyles in return. Under PAP government, Singapore has soared so high with an unprecedented economic achievement, even the world economic crisis in 1997 couldn't do so much to Singapore as this republic has efficiently strengthened itself for many decades since Lee Kuan Yew's era. 

PAP's political success has resulted in various aspects such as religious peace, racial harmony, well education, excellent health care, strong social discipline, and high employment rates.. The one of many valuable things brought by Lee Kuan Yew into society is the English language. He himself was graduated from England, and PAP's leadership contained many English-educated lawyers and journalists. Lee's vision was focused on the importance of this universal language for communication. As a result, he intentionally put it in every educational level and more than half of Singaporeans today can speak fluent English.

Although the unprecedented achievement of PAP has been obstructing the opposition parties to reach their goals, yet today PAP has been challenged by some serious competitions. In 1968, PAP gained 84% of the election, while in 1997 the percentage declined to 63%. What PAP has done to remain powerful was to win over new generations who knew only little about the history and early struggles of the country. Anyway, there are 22 opposition parties in Singapore today but three of them play the unique roles against the ruling PAP. These 3 parties are the Workers' Party, Singapore Democratic Party, and Singapore Democratic Alliance. There were only 2 seats belonged to all of these 22 opposition parties in the previous parliament.

As long as PAP possesses the most seats in parliament, the ruling style will not deflect its principles from these following issues such as:

• Government control of the domestic media, chiefly the critics. Those who appear to cross the line or are considered as a threat will be banned. The subversive journalists could be arrested even though permission in free criticism was already given by the government itself. Once Singapore was criticized in "Disneyland with the Death Penalty," an article by William Gibson. The article's title indicates the sarcastic purpose very clearly.
• Internal Security Act (1963) has a right to censor articles that generate violence, religious conflict, or arouse disobedience to the law.
• The Newspaper and Printing Presses Act requires all newspapers to hold the government licenses that expired every year and demands all newspapers to submit sensitive articles in advance before publishing.
• Popular foreign magazines like Time, Asiaweek, Reuters, Asian Wall Street Journal and Far Eastern Economic Review once had a hard time in Singapore as their articles offended the government and faced the risk of being banned or muzzled.
• Censoring cyberspace is taken into account as well due to the myriad of articles concerning the parliament posted on the internet. The government is concerned about this issue as communication through cyberspace can negatively affect the country's economy. The government has created the censorship program under IT2000 Plan, but the ruling PAP was then criticized a foisted Western political standards on Asia as they rip off Singaporeans' freedom.

The aforementioned restrictions considered too stern and lack of full freedom. PAP rules Singaporeans with its principles and does anything to remain powerful upon all other opposition parties. It seems impossible that PAP will one day lose the power as its political schemes are superb. Although PAP has altered Singapore to the developed country, yet it is felt that Singaporeans are looking for the golden means in their very own nation.

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Royal Exclusive Travel