Singapore has not yet settled on a timeline as to when Finance Minister Lawrence Wong will take over the reins from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as the city-state’s next premier.
This decision will be based in part on what would help the party win the next election, Lee said in a press conference on Saturday, April 16, two days after Wong was named chief of the so-called fourth-generation leadership team.
“We will do this carefully and deliberately,” Lee said. “I am already 70 and I am looking forward to handing over to Lawrence once he is ready.”
The city-state’s political succession is usually a well-choreographed affair in the small but wealthy country, in which the ruling People’s Action Party has held power uninterrupted for nearly six decades.
Wong’s appointment follows a year of uncertainty over who would lead Singapore after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat stepped aside as heir apparent, saying he would be too old to take over once the pandemic was over. Lee had postponed a decision to step aside before he turned 70 in 2022, citing a desire to hand over Singapore “intact” and in “good working order” to the next team.
“I will discuss with Lawrence, and we will decide later what the best strategy is for us to fight the next General Election,” Lee said. “Whether it is for me to hand over to him first, he consolidates, he leads into the next election as leader of the 4G team and will be in charge after the next election; or I go into the next election leading the PAP, fight the next election, and if we win, after that Lawrence takes over.”
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Wong, who entered the political fray in 2011, would be the fourth prime minister in Singapore since independence. Speaking at the same press briefing, he said he expects the job to get “more challenging with greater political contestation and a growing desire for diversity in Parliament.”
Singapore’s next polls must be held by November 2025, though the elections are usually called well before the five-year term expires. The People’s Action Party saw its worst parliamentary performance in the 2020 election despite winning 89% of seats, as the opposition pushed for measures to help low-income Singaporeans and hire locals over foreigners.
“We do not assume that the PAP will win the next general election,” Wong, 49, said at the press briefing. “Every GE from now on will be about which party will form the Government – not just how many seats the opposition wins, or what percentage of the votes the ruling party gets.”
