The Early Years of Goh Chok Tong

I am no fan of politics but I have avidly followed the life of respected leaders such as the late Mr Ong Teng Cheong and SM Lee Kuan Yew. It all started when I unintentionally came upon a pictorial of the late Mr Ong, our humble previous president. I was intrigued and amazed at the determination of the late Mr Ong Teng Cheong to make Singapore into a modern city. It was his vision that brought us the MRT and the HDB flats. Their individual life stories have brought much inspiration and hope to me as a citizen of Singapore. As Singapore is going to move into a new phase of leadership in our government, let us take a look at the story of the man who made the transition smooth. I will start with the first of the four parts of the life story of the very much respected Mr Goh Chok Tong, where we will take a closer look at the life of him when he was a youth.




Part I

The year is 1959.

This story is about a young man whose destiny it was to become one of the most influential figures in Singapore.

Even as a student the young Goh Chok Tong showed considerable leadership qualities.

He was Vice Head Prefect, class monitor and Editor of the school magazine and also school swimming captain -- you might call him somewhat of an over-achiever.

Fellow classmate and now MP Tan Cheng Bock recalls a time he was literally fished out of the river by Mr Goh, "He pulled me out of a deep river once. Really, really! We were hiking, you see I have to assess him, whether he can pass his first class badge or not as a scout. So I'm actually like the observer. I can fail him if i want to if he doesn't make the mark. So I remember we went to this river and I didn't know it was so deep. We went in. But he's still up to his shoulder. So he just yanked me out! But that was good fun!"

His extra curricular activities aside, Mr Goh was most often remembered as a serious student.

In a citation given to NUS Society members, Nominated MP Chandra Mohan Nair said while fellow students were reading comic books, Mr Goh would be reading economic books.

Those who knew the young Goh Chok Tong described him as studious.

Dr Tan remembers being baffled by Mr Goh's reading collection, "He was very very studious, when I visited him, years ago to his room, my goodness, you should see the books he was reading! Gosh! They were all Russian authors which don't make sense to me but, the names all sound very intellectual you know? Those sort of books that he was reading? We were not. We were down to our own school books. So at that level already he was so way ahead already."

67-year-old S Puhaindran was a young teacher in Raffles Institution when Mr Goh was a student there.

He remembers the young Goh Chok Tong as a dependable and upright student, "I was a young teacher, he was a Pre-U 2 student. I remember him as someone who was quite scholarly, one of those students even teachers respect. He was a prefect and he carried himself very well and he was popular among his own schoolmates and so on. I was actually a scout master then also, and he was an ex-scout. He was the type who would talk quietly to those who misbehave, that kind of thing, and get them to pull up their socks you know? Teachers could depend on him."

Could Mr Goh have been the ubiquitous nerd in school?

Well, those who knew him as a student wouldn't go that far in describing him, but classmate and friend Tan Cheng Bock recalls a young man who was rather prim, "He's very prim and very correct. He's not so playful like us. When we did our rock and roll he won't even stand up and do the rock and roll. He'll sit there in one corner and even watch us."

It was perhaps that attitude gleaned from the early years that prompted then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to describe Mr Goh as being rather wooden.

Mr Goh himself admitted to this in his national day rally speech last year when he touched on his political transition, "In 1990, before I became Prime Minister, SM advised me to be tough and be feared. But I thought it best to be myself, and not try to act tough. In 1988 during a talk to NUS students, SM said I was too "wooden", and advised me to see a psychiatrist, to loosen up. I learnt to loosen up, without seeing a psychiatrist. My point is, I found my own way to communicate with you, the people."

Those who have followed Mr Goh's career agree that he's changed over the years.

From a stiff politician, Mr Goh has grown to be a warm, caring and approachable leader.

Political commentator Viswa Sadasivan says, "He's become a lot more confident of his policies, a lot more confident of his style of governance which is very collegiate and people driven. His consultative style is very much a function of that. He has also become a lot more confident about communicating his views in his own way without actually trying to be somebody else."

Taking over from Lee Kuan Yew is a hard act to follow for anyone.

Mr Viswa recalls the years when Mr Goh was still trying to find his own style of governance, "I recall in the initial years of the National Day Rally he tried in the first couple of years I think, he tries using PM Lee's style of using charts at the rally and it didn't quite fit his own personal style so he evolved his own style of communicating. Even the way he communicated at the National Day Rally was completely different from how PM Lee managed the rally. It was a lot more personalised. It was a lot more anecdotal. Even his analogies, people are not quite impressed with his analogies but it was his own brand, his own style. And I think over time, people have come to accept him as Goh Chok Tong the Prime Minister and not see him as Goh Chok Tong the Prime Minister by default."

Dr Tan attributes this change not so much with the need to be popular with the people but to Mr Goh's own personality, "I think basically he has that in him already. It's not that he wants to act it out you see. Because if you act it out, it's different. Because in school you know, he's very caring, he'll join us when we want him to do something, he'll join us, he'll never question. See when i cooked, he washed the pots! See he doesn't complain he just go along with us, and he'll join us, he's very sporting in that sense."

Over the next 14 years, Mr Goh has proved his own mettle as a Prime Minister -- winning over the hearts and minds of Singaporeans.

Even pointed comments in the early years that Mr Goh was a mere seat-warmer for Lee Hsien Loong has long dissipated.

Nominated MP Chandra Mohan Nair echoed the view of many, "If the label seat warmer had been true, by now the seats would have been burnt totally! Definitely he's not a seat warmer. I think he's been with us more than a decade and that surely cannot be labeled as seat warming unless you've got a really warped definition of seat warming. I think he has been given the chance to be prime minister and I think has proven to our country and to this region and the world at large that he's a very capable leader. I think at the end of the day the lesson learnt is that give a guy a chance and probably he will prove that he is capable of doing things."

From awkward youth to astute politician -- join me again as we trace Mr Goh's contribution to Singapore and Singaporeans.