Being able to change among reasons for PAP's success, says Shanmugam

It has 'forced itself to change continuously' to stay relevant to challenges: Minister

- Deepanraj Ganesan

Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam is no stranger to change.

In his 37 years in politics, he has served under four prime ministers, first as a PAP backbencher and then later in Cabinet. He entered politics in 1988, just before the global environment was about to change rapidly with the collapse of communism in Europe, and that of the Soviet Union a few years later.

In all that time, the PAP has remained successful as a party because it has "forced itself to change continuously" to stay relevant to evolving challenges.

Mr Shanmugam said this on The Straits Times' current affairs podcast The Usual Place on April 16, when he was asked about how the PAP has evolved over the last four decades.

"This party has been successful because it accepts change. Many parties don't have longevity because certain things worked and they stuck to whatever worked, and after a while, when things changed, they couldn't give up on what they liked doing, or what they were comfortable doing," he said.

Success has been possible only because the Government regularly takes stock and changes the way it does things as the external environment changes, he said during the session, which was hosted by podcast host Natasha Ann Zachariah and ST editor Jaime Ho.

Mr Shanmugam cited as an example how the Singapore economy has been restructured over the years.

He pointed to how Singapore has continued to prosper despite the various turbulent periods over the last three decades, such as the 1997 and 2008 financial crises, the 2002-2004 Sars outbreak and the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We survived all of them. We have done well on any objective economic criteria. In terms of our quality of our people's lives, they have improved," he said.

While that does not mean that 100 per cent of Singaporeans are better off, Mr Shanmugam pointed out that the vast majority were.