Like my interlocutor, Ross Worthington seems to detect a trend of the latter happening. His Governance in Singapore (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) is fairly notorious for his allegation, with a thriller-novel-like description (in pp.150-1, quoted here), that Lee Hsien Loong slapped S. Dhanabalan - which was emphatically denied by then-PM Goh. Ironically the denial itself seems to have spurred the false perception that the slapping incident really did occur.

Somewhat surprisingly, given Worthington's almost relentless criticism of the PAP state's political arrangements, he appeared to give considerable benefit of doubt to the 1994 decision to link ministerial pay to the private sector, which is the foundation of the recent ministerial pay increase: 'The state is largely autonomous but its rulers could not be classed as rent-seekers although they earn the highest public sector salaries in the world calculated on a transparent market-linked basis.' (p.247)

Nonetheless he suggests that the PAP's difficulty in recruiting and retaining political talent for the core executive stems less from private sector competition and more from how MM Lee's style and actions have led to the alienation of the middle class / educated elite:

[MM] Lee had also trawled through all possible candidates for elected office, been rejected by many, tried out the remainder and discarded them, almost brutally. This had alienated a very large sector of the nation's intellectual and business elite... the source of alternative leaders [outside of the Civil Service] was becoming resistant to recruitment. (p.148)

Worthington cites a fairly extensive list of the great and good who did not make it into the second generation leadership team; he focuses, in particular, on the case of Dr Tan Eng Liang. Drawing heavily on Prof Chua Beng Huat's exposition in his seminal Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (1995) [pp.53-54] on this case of how an ideology of pragmatism both constrained and enabled the reclassification of a talented individual to a non-talented one: either on the basis of qualities/qualifications, practical ability and personality. Worthington noted that because Dr Tan could not be reclassified on the basis of the former two, the third criteria was evoked. Inverting this, he rather mischievously suggests that the personality problem could be on the other side instead.

It would be a fascinating historical project if all of these former MPs and MOSes could be interviewed to get their side of the story. Such empirical research could also test Worthington's claim that Singapore is experiencing a "crisis of recruitment: a withdrawal... from the PAP system by those outside the public sector, as the only acceptable response to objecting to its continuance in its present form"(p.239).

This brings one back to the theme of the conversation, over coffee and cake, mentioned earlier:

Active resistance to PAP hegemony is pointless to most Singaporeans. However, there is nothing the PAP can do to force people to participate within that part of the system which recruits for the political or public service executives. If these trends are genuine and they continue, the core executive will be forced to draw the political and public sector executives from an increasingly smaller pool... until its oligarchic nature becomes so apparent that it could cause considerable social discord or, more probably, almost complete political apathy. If you exclude everyone from the game, it's impossible to then blame them for not wanting to play. (p.240)

Living up to his formidable reputation, MM Lee once again made the above-mentioned impossibility possible in his remarks at the Young PAP dialogue held at St James Power Station on 21 May 2007. The weapon of the weak of apathy and withdrawal are portrayed as illegitimate, irresponsible, one more step in the slippery on the way to destruction.

And yet this discursive practice is in itself an indication of weakness within strength, of the inability of raw brute power to secure the consent and true belief that is needed to perpetuate the hegemonic project. Likewise there is some irony in how the breathless ascription of futility to active competition and contestation reinforces the perpetuation of hegemony by re-telling its Singapore Story of It's PAP Hegemony or Chaos and Collapse. But withdrawal need not mean despair or giving up the ghost. Sometimes we need time/place to be away, to lick our wounds, to bide our time, to rediscover the ability to dream anew once more. Who knows what visions Ch'ü Po-yü mediated on, withdrawing as he did, when the Way fell into disuse in the state?