Edited sentence: He cited freedom of access to the internet for Singaporeans, which is unavailable to many other Asians, as a sign of growing political freedom.He could only make a historic comparison and cite the length of time it took for the West to abolish slavery and give women the vote.Mahbubani during the BBC interview was unable to explain satisfactorily why in spite of excellent economic development during the last four decades, political freedom in Singapore was still so undeveloped even though in his writings he has asserted that Asian countries would develop economically first before increasing political freedoms