Update 23 Apr 2021: Cabinet reshuffle - Chan Chun Sing, Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung get new portfolios; no new DPM
The three 4G ministers thought of as frontrunners to be Singapore's next Prime Minister have all been given new portfolios, in the latest Cabinet reshuffle announced on Friday (Apr 23).
Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing will become Education Minister, taking over from Mr Lawrence Wong, who becomes Finance Minister. Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung will be the next Health Minister, replacing Mr Gan Kim Yong, who takes over as Trade and Industry Minister. All new appointments will take effect on May 15, after the next Parliament sitting.
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, widely thought to be the next Prime Minister, had announced earlier this month that he is stepping aside as a 4G leader for a younger person to become the future Prime Minister. Mr Heng will continue as Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies. He will relinquish his portfolio as Finance Minister. A new Deputy Prime Minister was not announced as part of the reshuffle.
Singapore PM names new finance minister in cabinet shakeup
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong named Lawrence Wong, who has been tipped as a contender to be future premier, as the new finance minister on Friday in a broad cabinet reshuffle.
Wong, the current education minister, is among a crop of younger political figures who have been touted by analysts as potential successors to Lee.
Wong replaces Heng Swee Keat, whose move to step aside as the country's leader-in-waiting, has reopened a debate over who will be prime minister when Lee, 69, retires.
Singapore names new finance minister in cabinet reshuffle after setback in leadership succession
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has named a new finance minister, replacing Heng Swee Keat who announced two weeks ago that he will step aside as Lee’s designated successor.
Lawrence Wong, the country’s current education minister and second finance minister, will helm the finance portfolio from May 15, the prime minister’s office said on Friday. Wong is also the co-chair of Singapore’s taskforce on Covid-19, and has risen in prominence since the coronavirus outbreak last year. Wong is among potential candidates that analysts said could eventually take over from Lee as prime minister.
The cabinet shuffle came after Heng’s announcement threw Singapore’s carefully planned leadership succession into disarray. Heng, who’s 60 this year, had cited his age as an obstacle in steering the country in a post-pandemic world.
PM Lee Hsien Loong unveils new Cabinet line-up: 5 things to know
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday (April 23) announced a reshuffle of his Cabinet, in the first change to political appointments since the general election last year.
This comes two weeks after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat stepped aside as leader of the People's Action Party's (PAP) fourth-generation (4G) team and paved the way for a younger person with a longer runway to lead the country when PM Lee retires. Although he remains DPM and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, he will relinquish his role as Finance Minister to Mr Lawrence Wong.
Six other ministries will also be helmed by new faces, with the changes taking effect from May 15.
With Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announcing on Thursday (April 8) that he will step aside from the helm of the People's Action Party's (PAP) fourth-generation leadership, four men have emerged as likely candidates to fill his shoes.
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Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat has taken himself out of the running as Singapore’s next prime minister. — TODAY file pic
They are Mr Chan Chun Sing, Mr Ong Ye Kung, Mr Lawrence Wong and Mr Desmond Lee - with one of them possibly succeeding Mr Lee Hsien Loong as Singapore's prime minister.
All four are full ministers in PM Lee's Cabinet, and were present at Thursday's press conference on DPM Heng's decision. They are also key members of the PAP's 4G core and its central executive committee.
Heng Swee Keat steps aside: A timeline of a Singapore political succession that wasn’t to be
The news today that Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat was taking himself out of the running as Singapore’s next prime minister marked an unexpected turn of events that began in 2018.
That year, he was named the first assistant secretary-general of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), a role that analysts said put him in the almost-certain position of becoming Singapore’s next premier.
Here is a look at the events that have unfolded since and that culminated in today’s announcement:
- Nov 2018: Heng is appointed first assistant secretary-general of the PAP at the party’s annual convention at the age of 57. Chan Chun Sing, the Minister for Trade and Industry, is named second assistant secretary-general.
- Nov 2019: In a high-profile debate, Heng crosses swords with Workers’ Party (WP) chairman Sylvia Lim in Parliament, after tabling a motion calling on Aljunied-Hougang Town Council to require Lim and former secretary-general Low Thia Khiang to recuse themselves from all financial matters related to the town council.
- Feb 2020: With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Heng unveils Budget 2020 to steer Singapore through a period of uncertainty. By the end of the year, he will have announced four more budgets to deal with the unprecedented crisis.
- June 2020: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong calls for a General Election to be held on July 10.
- July 2020: In a surprise move, Heng, who had previously helmed the team at Tampines Group Representation Constituency (GRC), is fielded in East Coast GRC.
- April 2021: Heng announces that he is taking himself out of the running for prime minister and will also relinquish his role as finance minister, while staying on as deputy prime minister and coordinating minister for economic policies.
Singapore’s leadership crisis
If you think the pandemic has left your own plans in tatters, spare a thought for poor Lee Hsien Loong (middle), Singapore’s sixty-eight-year-old prime minister.
Recently on the verge of stepping down after sixteen years at the helm, he now does not know when he can.
In March 2020 Lee seemed like the wisest and luckiest leader around. While other countries struggled to cope with the pandemic, he urged Singaporeans to “go about our lives as normally as possible."
related:
What a delayed political succession means for Singapore
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong alongside Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat and other members of the PAP Central Executive Committee celebrating the party's 65th anniversary in November 2019
The expected prolonged Covid-19 pandemic crisis has claimed another casualty — this time in the unprecedented disruption to Singapore’s carefully laid-out plans for political renewal and succession. Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat has decided that it is “in the best interests of the nation” for him to step aside as the leader of the fourth-generation (4G) team. He explained that he would have “too short a runway” as prime minister by the time he takes over after the pandemic is over.
It is not a leadership crisis yet. Much will depend on how the 4G leaders handle this severe setback. The uncertainty of who will succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong could undermine trust and confidence in the 4G leadership as a whole.
Mr Heng’s decision has, unsurprisingly, generated talk that he has been forced out, partly due to his East Coast Group Representation Constituency team’s lacklustre performance in the July 2020 General Election (GE). Mr Heng’s People’s Action Party (PAP) team won 53.4 per cent of the popular vote against the Workers’ Party team.
Singapore Faces Biggest-Ever Succession Planning Challenge
Heng Swee KeatPhotographer: Wei Leng Tay/Bloomberg
The rumblings started shortly after Singapore’s ruling party won 89% of seats in last year’s election. What would be hailed as a fantastic outcome in most places amounted to the worst parliamentary performance ever for the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since the country’s independence in 1965, one of the longest uninterrupted stretches for any party around the world.
Even more troubling, it could be viewed as a lack of enthusiasm for Heng Swee Keat, who had become heir apparent to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a carefully managed succession plan.
After Heng’s multi seat constituency squeaked out a win by 6.8 percentage points — a narrow margin by Singapore standards — some insiders privately expressed concerns about him to other ministers, according to six party members, among whom are two high-ranking individuals familiar with the discussions.
related:
Singapore's 4G leadership race: Will it be Ong, Wong or Chan?
The race to become the successor to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong appears to be down to three men: Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung, 51, Education Minister Lawrence Wong, 48, and Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing, 51. Sources in the People's Action Party (PAP) and academics, while divided on the frontrunners, agreed that the process, which will have repercussions for the next election, needs to be carefully managed. A Cabinet reshuffle scheduled for next week, which will fill the all-important Finance Minister portfolio, is expected to shed more light on who will be Lee's heir apparent.
Singapore's well-oiled leadership succession was abruptly brought to a halt last Thursday (8 April), when Deputy PM Heng Swee Keat stepped aside as leader of the Republic's fourth-generation leadership team and designated successor to Lee. Heng, 59, cited his age and the disruptions caused by the pandemic as the key reasons for his decision at a media conference.
In response, Heng's 4G colleagues said in a statement that his decisions had been an "unexpected turn of events" and said they would need "more time" to select another leader. Lee said at the same conference that the process of choosing his successor would take "more than a few months", and "should not take more than a couple of years", with a clear outcome before the next general election.
Why is there a paucity of political leadership in SG?
Over the past few days many in Singapore and overseas have expressed surprise at the seeming paucity of political leadership talent in the ruling People’s Action Party.
I actually think this has been a long time coming, and in many ways is just reflective of our city-state’s economic and democratic maturation, about which there is plenty to cheer.
I explain why in a commentary, “Concerns about ‘seeming paucity’ of PAP leadership talent”, published in The Home Ground Asia, a new Singapore-based media outfit.
Full Coverage:
DPM Heng Swee Keat steps aside as leader of PAP 4G team, PM Lee accepts decision
DPM Heng steps aside as 4G leader, setting back Spore's succession plan for next PM
DPM Heng no longer Spore's next PM; to relinquish Finance portfolio at Cabinet reshuffle
DPM Heng takes himself out of running for PM, cites short runway, age & health as factors
DPM Heng steps aside as leader of 4G team: Who will be next to lead the team?
DPM Heng stepping aside as 4G leader for younger person to become future PM
PAP 4G team says more time needed to pick new leader after DPM Heng steps aside
PM Lee thanks DPM Heng for 'selfless decision' to step aside as leader of 4G team
Cabinet reshuffle to be announced in two weeks; DPM Heng to give up finance portfolio
When will Singapore next PM be unveiled?
The PAP’s CEC election on Sunday has shed more light on Singapore’s next generation of leaders from the PAP. I’m of course assuming that the opposition doesn’t do a Pakatan Harapan.
From the looks of things, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing is almost certain to become our next Prime Minister, with Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat assuming deputy prime minister positions.
Just take a look at who’s in the CEC, their ages, and their background (sorry Lawrence, looks like no space again for you this time):
The prime minister of Singapore is the head of government of the Republic of Singapore. The president appoints the prime minister, a Member of Parliament (MP) who in their opinion, is most likely to command the confidence of the majority of MPs. The incumbent prime minister is Lee Hsien Loong, who took office on 12 August 2004. Singapore is modelled after the Westminster system. The prime minister only governs with the confidence of the majority in Parliament; as such, the prime minister typically sits as a Member of Parliament (MP) and leads the largest party or a coalition of parties. In practice, the prime minister is the leader of the majority party in Parliament.
DPM Heng steps aside as 4G leader, setting back Spore's succession plan for next PM
DPM Heng no longer Spore's next PM; to relinquish Finance portfolio at Cabinet reshuffle
DPM Heng takes himself out of running for PM, cites short runway, age & health as factors
DPM Heng steps aside as leader of 4G team: Who will be next to lead the team?
DPM Heng stepping aside as 4G leader for younger person to become future PM
PAP 4G team says more time needed to pick new leader after DPM Heng steps aside
PM Lee thanks DPM Heng for 'selfless decision' to step aside as leader of 4G team
Cabinet reshuffle to be announced in two weeks; DPM Heng to give up finance portfolio
When will Singapore next PM be unveiled?
Signs Point to Chan Becoming Next Prime Minister with Shan and Heng Serving as Deputies
From the looks of things, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing is almost certain to become our next Prime Minister, with Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat assuming deputy prime minister positions.
Just take a look at who’s in the CEC, their ages, and their background (sorry Lawrence, looks like no space again for you this time):
- Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 66
- Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam, 59
- Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, 59
- Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, 59
- Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat, 57
- Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, 57
- Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, 55
- Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli, 55
- Culture, Community and Youth Minister Grace Fu, 54
- Labour Chief Ng Chee Meng, 50
- Manpower Minister Josephine Teo, 50
- Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing, 49
- Speaker Tan Chuan-Jin, 49
- Education Minister Ong Ye Kung, 48
Prime Ministers of Singapore
Lee Kuan Yew (Appointed) Term of Office: 5 Jun 1959 - 28 Nov 1990
Goh Chok Tong (Appointed) Term of Office: 28 Nov 1990 - 12 Aug 2004
Lee Hsien Loong (Appointed) Term of Office: 12 Aug 2004 - 15 May 2024
Lawrence Wong (Appointed) Term of Office: 15 May 2024
The office of Prime Minister succeeded the office of Chief Minister in 1959 after Singapore had attained self-governance from the United Kingdom, as the State of Singapore, with Lee Kuan Yew being sworn in as the first prime minister on 5 June 1959. With respect to Singapore's autonomous status in the Malaysia Agreement, the title of prime minister remained unchanged after Singapore's merger with Malaya, Sarawak and North Borneo to form Malaysia in 1963, despite the existence of the prime minister of Malaysia for the entire federation of which Singapore was briefly a part of.
Following the independence of Singapore in 1965, the office of Prime Minister was retained, with the president of Singapore becoming a ceremonial head of state. In 1991, amendments to the Constitution of Singapore vested executive powers in the presidency, along with discretionary veto powers over the government. The Constitution also vests "general direction and control of the government" in the Cabinet, with the president almost always bound to act on the advice of the Cabinet or any minister acting under the Cabinet authority. Thus, in practice, most of the actual work of governing is done by the prime minister and Cabinet. Under Article 26(4)(a) of the Constitution of Singapore, the prime minister may appoint a Cabinet minister, subject to presidential approval, as acting prime minister if the prime minister is on medical leave, away from Singapore or is granted a leave of absence under Article 32 of the Constitution. The deputy prime minister or senior minister will usually become the acting prime minister, but any Cabinet minister may be appointed to the role.
