Even if Singapore is the best of all the authoritarian governments out there, it is still kinda fucked up. Even with its nature put aside, Singapore still engages in all sorts of regressive, backwards policies, up to a point where it's difficult to claim that any high govt official from Singapore holds any sort of sense of nobility within them. If this person is the prime minister, he is actively choosing to ignore, detach himself from, or even to support and continue those policies.
Singapore is a successful example of how to intergrate multiple ethnicity groups. Many liberal and progressive countries have tried their way and didn't get a good result.
Are both things linked? Even if they were, it's difficult to see how, say, caning as an accepted punishment, or gay rights suppression, can make an effect in ethnicity issues, unless we take this in the context of co-opting the cultural values of the less progressive culture present in the country. And in any case, stomping on some human rights for the greater benefit of the rest of society is kind of a gray area. The least we can do is recognize that grayness. Even if there existed a tangible payoff in acting and governing in that way, everyone should be aware of its price.
