Is Singapore's leader-in-waiting the crisis man his country needs?

Singapore Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, right, speaks as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong looks at the Presidential Palace in Singapore on Saturday. EPA

Singapore has had just three prime ministers and one political party at its helm since becoming a self-governing entity in 1959. The reason is down to two overriding factors. One is the country’s tightly controlled political system, and the other is the sheer dominance of the men who throughout its history have come to occupy the hottest seat on the island.

Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong loom large over Singapore. And given their outsized role in the country’s transformation into a global economic powerhouse, they will be a hard act to follow for Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, who on Thursday was chosen to succeed Lee Hsien Loong on a yet-undetermined date.

As if their legacies are not daunting enough, the time it has taken for the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to zero in on Mr Wong, and the lack of clarity about when he will take over, point to two inconvenient truths confronting him. One is the churn that is under way within the party, and the other is the turning point that Singapore politics finds itself at.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to know a man, and Wong’s stock grew as the government’s point man during the pandemic

Mr Wong is undoubtedly in uncharted territory. But before looking at what’s in store for him, it is important to go back in time to understand the PAP’s system by which it chooses its leaders.

After each general election – every one of which the PAP has won by huge margins – the party picks its most competent legislators to form the Cabinet. The new members, then, choose a “first among equals” who will become prime minister.

That all three of the country’s premiers were overwhelming choices among their peers provided the stability that Singapore needed in its growing years. It helped, too, that it had an unofficial one-party system that to some extent was by design, but due also in large part to the PAP’s success in delivering prosperity to the people. There was, as a result, little genuine competition from outside the party.

However, that reality is gradually changing amid Singapore’s evolving demographics and economic conditions, as well as growing geopolitical turbulence around the globe. These changes have given rise to opposition parties both at the grassroots level and in Parliament at a time when the PAP is struggling to find good young leaders.

Mr Lee, who had planned to step down after turning 70 in February, was forced to delay his retirement to shepherd Singapore through the pandemic. His decision was also shaped by Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat’s announcement last April to step aside as Mr Lee’s original successor-in-waiting. Mr Heng, then 61, cited age as the main reason to rule himself out, but this meant the party had to start over again to find a new leader.

Heng Swee Keat of the People's Action Party meets residents during a walkabout ahead of the general election in Singapore in 2020.

That leader today is Mr Wong. Whether he is undisputedly so, however, remains in question. For even though 15 of the 19 fellow Cabinet members eventually voted for him, it likely wouldn’t have taken a whole year after Mr Heng made his announcement to step aside for the party to anoint Mr Wong, had he been its clear choice. It is believed that a lack of political heft, at least relative to that of some of his peers, was a major hurdle.

Mr Wong, though, has extensive experience in government, having worked as a high-flying career bureaucrat before joining politics in 2011. If his various stints across ministries provided the cake, his position as a co-chair of the all-important Covid-19 taskforce presented the cherry on top. Sometimes it takes a crisis to know a man, and Mr Wong’s stock grew as the government’s point man during the pandemic. During regular briefings, he proved to be an excellent communicator with an empathetic side and an unflappable demeanour that quickly endeared him to his colleagues and the broader electorate.

It is this visibility that the PAP will hope makes him a vote-catcher in the next general election (to be held no later than in the summer of 2025). Mr Wong is also affable, loves playing the guitar and appears in TikTok videos, which have made him more accessible to ordinary Singaporeans than other politicians. More than anything else, though, it is his humble beginnings – not unlike Mr Goh’s background – that the party will bank on come election time, particularly in competitive constituencies.

Then Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew shakes hands with then French prime minister Jacques Chirac at Matignon in Paris. AFP

Goh Chok Tong, who was Singapore's second prime minister, at the 21st International Conference of The Future of Asia in Tokyo in 2015. AFP

But neither the PAP nor Mr Wong should focus on elections just yet, or entertain the idea of holding a snap election, as has been speculated. The leader-in-waiting needs to consolidate his position in the party first.

As Cherian George, the Hong Kong-based Singaporean writer, pointed out, voters in a general election are “entitled to consider factors other than whom the PAP picks as its leader – like the quality of MPs”. The PAP’s numbers, Mr George said, need not reflect confidence in a new leader. Indeed, a clearer measure of Mr Wong’s political standing will come from within the PAP. Can he, for instance, prevail over who gets what post in the party? Or will he, as Mr George says is likely, “have to bow to godfathers' wishes”? Time will tell whether he can hold the party together, but it will undoubtedly be key to how well he is able to govern the country.

Finally, elections can wait as the next man gathers much-needed experience working as Mr Lee’s understudy in the run-up to 2025. With a Cabinet reshuffle coming up, his promotion to the position of deputy prime minister is almost certain. This is important.

If his predecessors were given a long rope before they rose to the top, surely Mr Wong deserves at least until the next election to find his feet.