PM Lee turned 70 on Feb 10 and the guessing game about his successor hots up

Singapore — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong celebrated his 70th birthday on Thursday, Feb 10, on a day marked by, among  other things, the release of the Parliament’s Committee of Privileges report on the Raeesah Khan scandal and the news that Crash Landing on You stars Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin are getting hitched

This particular birthday should have been a significant one for Singapore, as PM Lee had announced in 2012 that he planned to step down by then.

Back then, Mr Lee told The Straits Times that he “hoped not” to continue as Prime Minister after the age of 70.

“Seventy is already a long time more. And Singapore needs a prime minister who is younger, who’s got that energy, and who is in tune with that very much younger and very much different generation.”

However, two events forced a change of plan.

First, the Covid-19 pandemic. 

PM Lee told voters during the GE 2020 campaign  that he would remain at the helm during the health and economic crisis that Covid-19 had forced on Singapore, and indeed on the whole world.

He promised that he would hand Singapore over “in good shape” to the ruling People’s Action Party’s 4G (fourth generation) of leaders before he retired.

Secondly, on April 8 last year, Deputy Prime Minister Heng See Keat announced that he was withdrawing from contention to be the next Prime Minister.

Then 60, DPM Heng who had served as Finance Minister for six years, had long been expected to succeed PM Lee’s successor. But he had suffered a stroke in 2016, and said that because of his  health and age, he was  stepping aside.

It did not help that just ahead of the 2020 GE, he was moved from from Tampines GRC  to East Coast GRC. The PAP team he led in Tampines GRC took 72.06 per cent of the vote in 2015; but in East Coast GRC, victory came with a much smaller 57.22 per cent.

Since DPM Heng dropped his bombshell, speculation on the next Prime Minister has focused on  Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, perhaps the most prominent public face of the Government’s response to the pandemic; Health Minister Ong Ye Kung; and Education Minister (and PAP’s Second Assistant Secretary-General) Chan Chun Sing.

Mr Wong, however, is widely considered to be leading the pack, and much is riding on his first Budget rollout next Friday, Feb 18.

Addressing the PAP Convention last November, PM Lee had said that the 4G leaders needed a “little longer” to decide on his successor although he acknowledged that the decision cannot “be put off indefinitely”.

He added: “I am confident that they will settle it well before the next General Election comes around. They have said this before, and I repeat what they say: It is not about selecting a ‘boss’ or the ‘winner of a race’. It’s not a reality show, it’s deadly serious – life and death decisions for Singaporeans,” he told PAP activists.

/TISG

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