"If you have plain, straightforward Westminster rules, I would tell you frankly, we would never have worked," Lee said in the Straits Times on Monday (Nov 12).

"You would never have self-renewal and a series of good people getting into the government and working Singapore up the ladder. You are going to have a musical set of chairs," he said.

Lee, 78, Singapore's founding father and first prime minister, was reacting to a published letter by members of the policy discussion group Roundtable suggesting electoral reforms to allow a "level playing field" for the opposition.

Members of the group had suggested over the weekend an amendment to the constitution to establish an independent elections commission.

The commission shall draw electoral boundaries "on the basis of geographical and logical bases, rather than political expediency."

Opposition parties have criticised the redrawing of electoral boundaries just days before the November 3 general elections, swept by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP).

In the changes, wards where the opposition had mounted strong challenges in previous elections were absorbed into bigger electoral districts.

The Roundtable members also proposed that MPs in uncontested electoral wards be given a mandate through a referendum in which they must get the endorsement of at least 25 percent of the voters in their constituency.

Unopposed MPs were being "ushered into parliament in privileged, red-carpet style by merely flashing their PAP cards," the group said.

While Singaporeans were being told to stand up to competition, the PAP itself was insulated from serious challenges, it added.

"The absence of competition over time might well lead to a flabby party led by those who enjoyed walkovers and continue to stay in power by making the field even less level for a diminishing opposition," the group said.

The PAP grabbed 82 of the 84 seats at stake in the polls, with 55 already won without even a vote cast on nomination day after they stood unopposed.

In an attempt to generate debate, particulaly on economic issues as the city-state battles its worst recession in 37 years, the government is to set up a de facto oppositon using its own newly elected backbench MPs.

Lee, credited for hauling Singapore out of economic backwardness into one of Asia's wealthiest nations but criticised for his iron-fisted style, however dismissed the group's suggestions as based on theory.

"I work on real-life experience," the veteran politician said.

"We have to formulate our rules to fit Singapore so that we produce a result, whether it is the PAP or an opposition, that forms a government which is going to work."

He asked whether having more opposition and changing election rules will benefit Singaporeans, who have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

"We have been able to evolve our system to produce good a government," Lee said.

Under Western-style elections, "good speakers" would often get elected.

"Then what? Then misgovernment and down the slippery slope," he said.

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