To what extent is political leadership important in sustaining good governance in Singapore? Explain your answer. [12m]

Issue : Sustaining good governance

Given factor : Political leadership

Alternative measure : Effective civil services

People's Trust

Rank Order

Necessary factor to ensure Singapore’s good governance
· Political Leadership (necessary but not sufficient measure)

Supporting factor to ensure Singapore’s governance
· Civil service and trust of the people

Good governance depends on transparency, accountability and equality in ways that are responsive to the needs of people. In order to sustain good governance in Singapore, we must have good political leadership through developing good government leaders. However this is not the only factor.

Government leaders are responsible for formulating sound effective policies for the good of the country and the people and implement them effectively. They should collaborate with other leaders and be able to win the support from the people.

To formulate sound, workable policies, a leader needs foresight and talent. He must be able to anticipate problems and adapt to changing situations and seize opportunities. He must understand the needs and aspiration of the people and communicate government policies effectively with them.

To ensure effective implementation of policies, a leader must show personal effectiveness and is able to inspire the others to work with him.

He must also be a man of integrity and good character. In carrying out his work, he needs to exercise fairness and incorruptibility. Furthermore, a leader must have good communication skills to explain government policies to the people so that they can understand and give support to the govt.

Leadership is, therefore, the one of the key in sustaining good governance.However, having good leaders alone does not guarantee good governance. It is also important to have good, efficient civil service for the day-to-day running of the government machinery.

It is not enough to have efficient, incorrupt leaders. In fact, good governance depends on the integrity of the civil service. The civil service must exercise meritocracy in the recruitment and promotion of its officers so that the best men and women are in the civil service. The working of every government department must be fair and transparent to all so that the people can have full trust on the government and investors will be attracted to Singapore because of the stability and trustworthiness of the government. Therefore having an effective civil services is another key in sustaining good governance.

Positive social factor is also important in sustaining good governance in Singapore.Good governance will not materialize if the people of Singapore do not support the government. It is thus important for the people to feel a strong sense of commitment and love for the country. They make contributions in their own capacity for the betterment of the nation and give constructive feedback to the leaders and civil service so that improvement will be made. This will help to sustain good governance.

Ultimately, in order to sustain good governance political leadership is a necessary but insufficient condition. Having good political leadership will ensure that an effective civil service is put in place so that policies and laws that benefit the people are implemented. However in order to sustain good governance in the long run, positive social factor must be in place so that the people will continue to trust the government. Only when the people can trust the government will they continue to vote the government and in this was good governance is sustained.