“There is a reservoir of trust and confidence in his leadership, but he will have to demonstrate that he and his team are equal to the task of leading Singapore in the post-Covid world,” said Eugene Tan, political commentator and associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University. “Managing expectations of a nation so wedded to success makes the task of governing Singapore tougher.”
(June 26): Singaporeans go to the polls next month ahead of the third change in prime minister in some six decades. And it’s all but certain to be a business-friendly technocrat known to work so hard he was back at his job three months after suffering a stroke in a cabinet meeting.
While the ruling People’s Action Party has been in power since independence and is expected to remain so, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has made clear his intention to step aside by the time he turns 70 in February 2022. The man tipped to succeed him, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, will navigate a very different future from the one he was groomed to inherit.
