Quora Answer: Which Singapore Politician is Most Similar to Donald John Trump?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Which politician from Singapore is most similar to Donald Trump?”

The Singapore political system is inclement to someone like Donald John Trump.  Let us assume we have a clone of Trump who is somehow a Singapore citizen.  Perhaps we wanted to tempt fate, and gave this virus life.  To run as a parliamentary candidate, for example, as set out on the Elections Department website (https://www.eld.gov.sg/candidate_parliamentary_qualify.html), aside from the usual conditions, such as being of the age of majority, able to communicate in the national or official languages, and citizenship, all of which are detailed in Article 44 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, we also have the conditions of disqualification in Article 45.

Donald John Trump has been a bankrupt four times.  He has been found in contempt of court multiple times.  He has been in contravention of the law, personally, or though his entities.  If we were to go through his history, it would be an uphill challenge for him to qualify to be a Parliamentarian, let alone make it into Cabinet.  Assuming he manages to overcome these hurdles, he would either have to form his own party, or stand as an independent.  He would be unelectable in a voting base that values results over showmanship, that has a general disapproval of celebrity culture for its own sake, and is morally conservative.

Singapore is very much a meritocracy.  We pride ourselves on the number of doctors, engineers, scientists, and economists in public service.  Academic results and a track record matter.  We are top heavy with graduates from the Ivy League universities, from MIT, from Stanford, from Oxford, from Cambridge, from LSE, and so forth.  Many of these people came from the scholars track.  And then, we have the values.  Parliamentarians have had to resign for affairs.  The reasoning is that if a person cannot be faithful to one spouse, such a person cannot be loyal to the state.  Public office requires discipline, because Singapore always operates on the assumption that we have a low margin of error.  Donald John Trump has never been faithful to any idea, let alone a woman.

Assuming the Donald clone would want to run for the Executive Presidency.  He would never get past the President Elections Committee.  Under the exhaustive requirements and conditions of Articles 19 and 19A of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, he would never qualify.