Without the elected president and if there is a freak result, within two or three years, the army would have to come in and stop it.
Freedom of the press, freedom of the news media, must be subordinated to the overriding needs of the integrity of Singapore, and to the primacy of purpose of an elected government.
I feel sanguine enough to say that there has never been a better set of conditions for open democratic politics because there is no need for unified front politics.
I have decided that we shall make and build and never give way.
Nine holes of golf will take you one-and-a-half, two hours. I run in 20 minutes, I feel better off. So the cost benefit made me drop golf.
The task of the leaders must be to provide or create for them a strong framework within which they can learn, work hard, be productive and be rewarded accordingly. And this is not easy to achieve.
We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.
You marry a non-graduate, then you are going to worry if your son or daughter is going to make it to the university.
If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it.
Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?
Even from my sick bed, even if you are going to lower me into the grave and I feel something is going wrong, I will get up.
Singaporeans, if I can chose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer, the foreign talent are the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never hangs because you got enormous storage capacity.
If Aljunied decides to go that way, well Aljunied has five years to live and repent.
The big nest was in Afghanistan, thats not quite cleared, then there are nests in the Philippines, there are nests in Indonesia, the Malaysians are clearing up their nests.
I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today.
I make no apologies that the PAP is the Government and the Government is the PAP.
The same law applies to me. Nobody has sued me for libel because I do not defame my enemies.
I have been accused of many things in my life, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind.
Most libels, and I have taken about 30 actions, take place at election time. It has not stuck because I am prepared to go before a court, stand in the witness box and face the most aggressive of lawyers who can cross-examine me on my personal history.
If I were in authority in Singapore indefinitely without having to ask those who are governed whether they like what is being done, then I would not have the slightest doubt that I could govern much more effectively in their interests.