Singapore foreign minister’s apology lays bare angst over elite school obsession and class divide
- Vivian Balakrishnan has apologised to opposition politician Leong Mun Wai for questioning his educational background while in parliament
- The incident has fuelled discussion on how capabilities are measured by the schools a person attended, and raised questions about leaders’ private views
But his asides were caught on microphone – and with the session being live-streamed, an audio clip with the comments “He’s illiterate”, “Seriously, how did he get into RI?” and “Must be a lousy school” quickly made the rounds.
Online, public attention focused more on the exchange than the serious debate taking place in parliament, on the need for Singapore to remain open to foreigners.
RI, for Raffles Institution, is a household acronym in the country of 5.7 million – 20 per cent of the current cabinet attended the school, as did the country’s late independence leader Lee Kuan Yew.
Balakrishnan on Wednesday said he had called the politician – Leong Mun Wai, one of the Progress Singapore Party’s two parliamentary representatives – to apologise for “my private comments to a colleague”.
“I disagree with him on the [debated] issue, but I should not have said what I said. Mr Leong has accepted my apology,” Balakrishnan wrote in a Facebook post.