SINGAPORE, Apr 15 : Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 72, will step down next month and his deputy Lawrence Wong will take over, the second non-member of the Lee family to lead the wealthy nation.
Wong, 51, is currently the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Singapore, and has been prime minister-in-waiting since 2022.
“I will relinquish my role as Prime Minister on 15 May 2024 and DPM (Deputy Prime Minister) Lawrence Wong will be sworn in as the next Prime Minister on the same day.
“I ask all Singaporeans to give Lawrence and his team your full support, and work with them to create a brighter future for Singapore,” Lee said on social media today.
Wong was chosen as Lee’s heir-apparent from a new generation of lawmakers from the People’s Action Party (PAP) which has ruled uninterrupted since independence in 1965.
“I accept this responsibility with humility and a deep sense of duty. I pledge to give you my all in this undertaking,” Wong said on social media.
The US-educated economist is widely seen as a social media-savvy stalwart who effectively handled the Covid-19 crisis when he oversaw the government’s pandemic taskforce.
The city-state was one of the first in Asia to quickly get back in the saddle as the pandemic eased in 2022, with business and tourism numbers picking up.
In 1990, the elder Lee handed power to his deputy, former shipping executive Goh Chok Tong, who was initially considered a “seat-warmer” for the patriarch’s son.
Goh, however, stayed on for 14 years before the younger Lee took over in 2004.
A general election has to be called by November 2025 but there is speculation it could take place this year.
In the previous election in 2020, the opposition showed its strongest performance since independence but hardly made a dent in parliament as 83 out of the 93 seats were won by the PAP.
The PAP’s squeaky clean image was recently stained by scandals which saw two lawmakers resign and a minister charged with graft.
The Workers’ Party, Singapore’s main opposition party, has also suffered from scandals with two members resigning and its leader charged for giving false testimony before a parliamentary committee. -TVS
