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Let's talk about policy failures and the elected presidency

19 Jan 2016

It is now January 2016. Singapore’s jubilee year SG50 is over. SG51 has begun. We must now begin preparing for SG100.

To do so, we must switch gears, going from celebration to reflection. We must think hard about new approaches and policies we need to adopt to keep Singapore successful.

One thing is absolutely certain. If we believe that we can sail into the next 50 years with the same set of policies that made us successful in the first 50 years, we are headed for trouble.

We could very well replicate the Kodak experience. Kodak was once one of the world’s most successful and admired companies. It became complacent. It refused to change course when circumstances changed. Today, Kodak is history.


Kishore Mahbubani is Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. This article was first published in The Straits Times on January 18, 2016.

Kishore Mahbubani

Founding Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore