WHEN Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU) in the June referendum, shocked and unhappy "Remain" supporters reacted by proposing radical reform of the "one man, one vote" system which has been in force for centuries and which has served democratic nations well throughout history.

The rationale for considering such drastic change was that ignorant and foolish voters ought to be protected from their own folly, and that by vesting proportionately greater voting power in presumably smarter and savvier hands, future economic and social disaster would likely be averted. Thankfully, now that the dust has settled on "Brexit" and more level heads are in control, that clamour has died down and the country is preparing to fulfil the wishes of its voters and extricate itself from the EU.

Local investors are now presented with a not dissimilar proposal, one which seeks to grant higher voting power to a privileged few. Last week, a Singapore Exchange (SGX) independent listings committee has proposed that the exchange amend its listing rules to allow dual-class (DC) shares, whereby certain shareholders of a firm may hold a small proportion of their company's shares but wield greater voting power.