It's nice to get the benefit of the doubt, and I'm tempted to let it remain, but let me clarify: I'm serious. I was impressed with Lee Kwan Yew's "From Third World to First" and it seemed to me he wasn't bashful about talking about the times he made an illiberal, dictator move. Both from the outcome and his telling, he made these moves as rarely as possible and didn't relish them. And he did smart things like rewarding government officials extremely well so that they would be (relatively) immune to bribery. I'm sure there are other examples of good leadership from the seat of absolute monarchy, even if we mainly focus on the bad ones in history class. FDR's wartime leadership comes to mind (people seem to forget how illiberal American government was during the war - and it was surely effective).

In all cases, the key to success with illiberal government seems to be self-restraint. When the war ends, you give up power. Or in general, when the object is achieved, you give up power. I've not followed Singapore's timeline since I read the book, so maybe they've backslid? Maybe its a psuedo monarchy run my Yew's ancestors? If so, that's a failure. Hopefully they can figure out how to pick leaders in a rational way - like an aptitude test.