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Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will step down on Wednesday and hand over power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong, the first change of power in the city-state in two decades.
Wong, 51, a US-trained economist credited with leading the country’s response to the pandemic, will be the fourth prime minister to lead Singapore and the first leader born since the country’s independence in 1965. He also so is only the second leader who is not a member of the founding Lee family. It will be unveiled at a ceremony on Wednesday evening.
Wong, who will receive a salary of S$2.2 million (US$1.6 million), takes over at a difficult time for the city-state, where there are growing domestic concerns about the cost of living, inequality and immigration. Singapore, which is heavily dependent on foreign trade, also finds itself vulnerable to wider global instability, including rivalry between the US and China.
Retired Prime Minister Lee has ruled Singapore since 2004, overseeing economic growth in one of the world’s richest countries. “He helped Singapore understand the liberalization of the world economy through trade and especially through finance and financial services,” said Ja Yan Chong, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
But the world in which Lee operated is falling apart, Chong added. “What we’re heading into now is a period where there’s less interest in economic integration globally. And you see that with the growing divergence between the US and the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”
Singapore maintains a delicate balance between China and the US. The former is Singapore’s largest trading partner, although Singapore also has military ties with the US, which account for more than 20% of all foreign direct investment in Singapore.
Wong emphasized continuity, said Chong, who added that it was unclear how the incoming prime minister would adapt to the new challenges Singapore faces. “In Singapore’s system, the process of electing a prime minister is very opaque. It’s not like a more competitive system where people running for party leadership have to campaign and thus they’re forced to represent your vision.
Wong, a former civil servant who first entered politics in 2011, comes from a more humble background than his predecessors. While outgoing Prime Minister Lee, 72, is the son of Lee Kuan Yew, who is widely regarded as the founder of modern Singapore, Wong grew up, like most Singaporeans, in public housing and did not attend an elite school.
In recent years, Wong has tried to portray himself as a more relatable politician, even posting a video on social media of himself playing guitar to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”
There is also a desire among younger voters for a change in Singapore’s leadership style in favor of something less paternalistic and with more diversity of voices, said Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at Singapore Management University. “The solution [People’s Action] the party thrives because the third-to-first-world narrative resonates well with my parents’ and grandparents’ generation. But it doesn’t resonate as well with millennials and Gen Z because all they know is first-world Singapore,” he said.
Wong is likely to seek to make “incremental changes to the political system,” he added.
The PAP, which has been in power since 1959, was also recently rocked by a rare corruption scandal that had a “humiliating effect” on the party – although it did not prove fatal, Tan said.
Lee’s handover had been planned for years. He previously said he planned to retire before he turned 70, but the carefully managed transition was delayed by the pandemic.
Elections must be held before November 2025.
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