It was a very direct question loaded with possibilities, something no Singapore journalist would ask of his/her PM.
With the results of the 2011 election as a backdrop, Financial Times journalist Gideon Rachman asked: So can you envisage a day when the PAP is not running Singapore?
The PM threw a bombshell of sorts. “It could well happen. I don’t know how it will work but it could happen.”
The report went on to say: “A little later, he hints that the PAP is beginning to consider the possibility one day of forming a coalition government.” It then quoted the PM as saying “it may not be one team in, one team out, it may be more complicated – you are getting used to more complicated – you’re getting used to more complicated than that in Britain now.”
Scenario planning is one of the big things about the PAP government. So this political possibility is something it must have discussed with some earnestness for the PM to raise it.
So what kind of partner will the PAP go to bed with? The Workers’ Party, which these days looks more like PAP Lite, is one possibility.
Another could be a set of leaders, many of whom could be brought in in the next the couple of elections, to eventually form a party that will join forces with the PAP and run Singapore.
For that to work, you need the new crop to have a mind of their own, dump some ideologies and reimagine Singapore in ways that are unthinkable for those in today’s PAP.