During a recent informal conference by a Cuban born entrepreneur with influence in the United States, he advocated outside private capital investment as a mean to bring economic changes within the communist regime that has enslaved Cubans for more than five decades.   He made a comparison between Haiti vs. Singapore and economic liberty vs. political liberty indicating that Haiti has “free elections” but a “third world” economy while Singapore has a thriving economy under a “totalitarian” regime.

Conclusion: there is no reason Cuba cannot become a “Singaporean” society under Castro’s totalitarian regime.

I do not question the good intentions behind the words but I believe this comparison is misleading.  To begin with, whether Haiti has ever had free and democratic elections is questionable and to compare Singapore’s government to the totalitarian regime of Cuba ignores the Cuban political reality and needs a trip or two to Singapore.

 A search of Wikepedia shows that Singapore is a parliamentary republic with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government and elections have been conducted since the British granted internal self-government in 1959, albeit always won by the People’s Action Party.  Singapore’s legal system has its foundations in the English common law system and gained sovereignty as the Republic of Singapore in 1965, remaining within the Commonwealth.