Four challenges facing Singapore’s incoming PM

COME Wednesday (May 15), Singapore will welcome its first prime minister born after independence. Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who has been at the helm for nearly 20 years.

While some may say that Wong has big shoes to fill, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) senior research fellow Gillian Koh noted that he has not only been a career civil servant and in government since 2011, but was also PM Lee’s principal private secretary.

“This means that he will have been exposed to the foreign parties that PM Lee interacted with over a span of decades when you add up his experience,” she said. “He will have crafted policy and speeches for his principal, heard how these have to be tuned just right for (the) government and Singapore.”