Time for Singapore to relax a bit?

Excerpt from the Asian Banker.  The last paragraph has a great punchline!

 

After much careful planning and detailed execution, Singapore appears to have fallen short in its desire to impress the estimated 20,000 delegates in the city-state attending the recent annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

At the heart of the matter was the banning of several prominent civic society organisation (CSOs) activists from entering Singapore, although they had been approved by the world organisations to attend. Also, in the spotlight was the banning of protests by CSOs except in highly restricted areas.

The president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, summed up the general sentiment about Singapore at the meetings when he said, “I would argue whether it has to be as authoritarian as it has been and I would certainly argue that at the stage of success they have reached, they would do much better for themselves with a more visionary approach to the process.” As Singapore does not have a strong CSO culture, his comments were generally ignored in the city-state.