All he can do is to pull cotton wool over your eyes a little better who is really in charge.
as illusions go, he is a more presentable choice.
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Lawrence Wong is Finance Minister, Ong Ye Kung is Health Minister, and Chan Chun Sing is Education Minister
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as illusions go, he is a more presentable choice.
Good to have a simple majority.
Say at most 60 per cent.
How many of them made their ministry better during their tenor? Hardly. I probably can cite you more massive screw-ups and indifference, I wish they tried to make things better, where ever they were.
I would say most are just like management trainees shifting around.
I would say most are just like management trainees shifting around.
Theindependent
Lawrence Wong as leading contender for prime minister of Singapore after Cabinet reshuffle
Lawrence Wong says SDP made false and baseless allegations. Picture:Facebook
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Kuala Lampur — Singapore has just announced a major Cabinet reshuffle. Seven of Singapore’s ministries will get new ministers.
The reshuffle comes inthe wake of Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat (HSK) announcing, earlier this month,that he would not be taking on the role of prime minister in the future.
HSK’s statement effectively created an opening at the top of Singapore’s political system.
He had been expected to succeed incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong but now with the succession unclear, this latest reshuffle will be keenly watched as the movement of ministers is likely to give some indication of who will succeed PM Lee.
- Advertisement -
There were no major surprises in the reshuffle. All the prominent next generation leaders of the PAP retained powerful positions.
Ong Ye Kung shifted from Ministry of Transport to Ministry of Health, Chan Chun Sing moved from Ministry of Trade and Industry to Ministry of Education.
However, it is the move of Lawrence Wong, previously education minister, to the prominent position of finance minister that will raise some eyebrows.
Traditionally, the position of finance minister has been seen as a stepping stone and bridge to the prime ministership.
The youngest of the contenders for leadership, Wong has a relatively short political career; he only entered Parliament in 2011 and has risen rapidly from relative obscurity.
Over the past year, he served as the chair of the multi-ministry task force to tackle Covid-19.
As such, he was the public face of Singapore’s battle against the pandemic and as the nation has emerged with a very low number of deaths, he has won considerable praise for effectively winning the battle against Covid-19.
But prior to his work on Covid-19, Wong had actually seen plenty of quite significant political/governance successes.
He led the team that would see Singapore’s Botanic Gardens recognised as Singapore’s first Unesco World Heritage Site.
He also did great work, as far as I’m concerned,pushing through the initiative that made all national museums and heritage institutions free for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents in 2013.
As minister for culture, community and youth from 2014 he led the project to transform and upgrade Singapore’s Civic District. Today it is an attractive historic precinct with increasingly world-class museums and galleries.
He also won plaudits for overseeing and lending government support to Singapore’s 2015 Asean Games team; those games would see our athletes make their best showing.
Without stealing any headlines, Wong has been racking up significant successes for some years.
Covid-19, though, gave him a national stage and more than just his technical competence in terms of steering a world-leading response, his ability to handle press conferences, speak directly to the people on the developing situation on restrictions and cases was impressive.
He exuded a gravitas and charm that have eluded most the fourth generation leadership.
And this is key.
The ruling People’s Action Party is not short of qualified technocrats with Ivy league or Oxbridge credentials and solid track records in terms of delivery but there has been a lack of charisma or reassurance at the top particularly where the younger leaders are concerned.
This clearly held back HSK and this intangible factor may yet be the determining factor for who succeeds PM Lee.
Wong appears to be the smoothest and most confident speaker of all the remaining contenders.
He is the son of a teacher and sales representative; he has risen through the ranks via education. Winning a coveted public scholarship to the University of Madison Wisconsin and then winning places at the University of Michigan and Harvard. He is the embodiment of the Singapore dream.
Though his ascension is not certain, the responsibilities of the Finance Ministry will likely be a final test. If he can manage the economy as well as he has Covid-19, I suspect little will stop him from reaching the No. 1 spot.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.Follow us on Social Media
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Lawrence Wong as leading contender for prime minister of Singapore after Cabinet reshuffle
Lawrence Wong says SDP made false and baseless allegations. Picture:Facebook
Author
- Advertisement -
Kuala Lampur — Singapore has just announced a major Cabinet reshuffle. Seven of Singapore’s ministries will get new ministers.
The reshuffle comes inthe wake of Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat (HSK) announcing, earlier this month,that he would not be taking on the role of prime minister in the future.
HSK’s statement effectively created an opening at the top of Singapore’s political system.
He had been expected to succeed incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong but now with the succession unclear, this latest reshuffle will be keenly watched as the movement of ministers is likely to give some indication of who will succeed PM Lee.
- Advertisement -
There were no major surprises in the reshuffle. All the prominent next generation leaders of the PAP retained powerful positions.
Ong Ye Kung shifted from Ministry of Transport to Ministry of Health, Chan Chun Sing moved from Ministry of Trade and Industry to Ministry of Education.
However, it is the move of Lawrence Wong, previously education minister, to the prominent position of finance minister that will raise some eyebrows.
Traditionally, the position of finance minister has been seen as a stepping stone and bridge to the prime ministership.
The youngest of the contenders for leadership, Wong has a relatively short political career; he only entered Parliament in 2011 and has risen rapidly from relative obscurity.
Over the past year, he served as the chair of the multi-ministry task force to tackle Covid-19.
As such, he was the public face of Singapore’s battle against the pandemic and as the nation has emerged with a very low number of deaths, he has won considerable praise for effectively winning the battle against Covid-19.
But prior to his work on Covid-19, Wong had actually seen plenty of quite significant political/governance successes.
He led the team that would see Singapore’s Botanic Gardens recognised as Singapore’s first Unesco World Heritage Site.
He also did great work, as far as I’m concerned,pushing through the initiative that made all national museums and heritage institutions free for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents in 2013.
As minister for culture, community and youth from 2014 he led the project to transform and upgrade Singapore’s Civic District. Today it is an attractive historic precinct with increasingly world-class museums and galleries.
He also won plaudits for overseeing and lending government support to Singapore’s 2015 Asean Games team; those games would see our athletes make their best showing.
Without stealing any headlines, Wong has been racking up significant successes for some years.
Covid-19, though, gave him a national stage and more than just his technical competence in terms of steering a world-leading response, his ability to handle press conferences, speak directly to the people on the developing situation on restrictions and cases was impressive.
He exuded a gravitas and charm that have eluded most the fourth generation leadership.
And this is key.
The ruling People’s Action Party is not short of qualified technocrats with Ivy league or Oxbridge credentials and solid track records in terms of delivery but there has been a lack of charisma or reassurance at the top particularly where the younger leaders are concerned.
This clearly held back HSK and this intangible factor may yet be the determining factor for who succeeds PM Lee.
Wong appears to be the smoothest and most confident speaker of all the remaining contenders.
He is the son of a teacher and sales representative; he has risen through the ranks via education. Winning a coveted public scholarship to the University of Madison Wisconsin and then winning places at the University of Michigan and Harvard. He is the embodiment of the Singapore dream.
Though his ascension is not certain, the responsibilities of the Finance Ministry will likely be a final test. If he can manage the economy as well as he has Covid-19, I suspect little will stop him from reaching the No. 1 spot.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.Follow us on Social Media
YouTube
Telegram
Send in your scoops to [email protected]
Theindependent
Party secy-gen Francis Yuen also calls for helping the PMETs get through the downturn
Photo: YouTube screengrab
Author
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Singapore — The Progress Singapore Party’s (PSP) new Secretary-General Francis Yuen congratulated Mr Lawrence Wong on his new appointment as Finance Minister.
In a press statement, Mr Yuen also sent his well wishes to the “other appointment holders in the Cabinet”.
He added: “We hope the new Cabinet will address the following: The current economic climate calls for greater support for SMEs and the underprivileged.”
Mr Yuen noted that the top priority must be fighting the pandemic and helping our SMEs and PMETs get through the challenges of the current economic downturn in the short term and restructuring our economy to stay robust in the long run.
- Advertisement -
“Our NCMPs will continue to advance our such causes in Parliament,” he said.
The PSP’s Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Leong Mun Wai in his maiden speech in the House called for the protection of jobs for the locals and reduction in work pass approvals and renewals, among other things.
The PSP Secretary-General Francis Yuen’s well wishes to the Cabinet members followed a major reshuffle by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
In the reshuffle on Friday (Apr 23). all three 4G ministers seen as frontrunners to be Singapore’s next Prime Minister were given new portfolios.
Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing will become Education Minister, taking over from Mr Lawrence Wong, who becomes Finance Minister. Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung will be the next Health Minister, replacing Mr Gan Kim Yong, who takes over as Trade and Industry Minister.
All new appointments will take effect on May 15, after the next Parliament sitting.
The announcement comes after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced earlier this month that he is stepping aside as a 4G leader for a younger person to become the future Prime Minister.
Mr Heng will continue as Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies. He will relinquish his portfolio as Finance Minister. /TISGFollow us on Social Media
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Party secy-gen Francis Yuen also calls for helping the PMETs get through the downturn
Photo: YouTube screengrab
Author
- Advertisement -
Singapore — The Progress Singapore Party’s (PSP) new Secretary-General Francis Yuen congratulated Mr Lawrence Wong on his new appointment as Finance Minister.
In a press statement, Mr Yuen also sent his well wishes to the “other appointment holders in the Cabinet”.
He added: “We hope the new Cabinet will address the following: The current economic climate calls for greater support for SMEs and the underprivileged.”
Mr Yuen noted that the top priority must be fighting the pandemic and helping our SMEs and PMETs get through the challenges of the current economic downturn in the short term and restructuring our economy to stay robust in the long run.
- Advertisement -
“Our NCMPs will continue to advance our such causes in Parliament,” he said.
The PSP’s Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Leong Mun Wai in his maiden speech in the House called for the protection of jobs for the locals and reduction in work pass approvals and renewals, among other things.
The PSP Secretary-General Francis Yuen’s well wishes to the Cabinet members followed a major reshuffle by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
In the reshuffle on Friday (Apr 23). all three 4G ministers seen as frontrunners to be Singapore’s next Prime Minister were given new portfolios.
Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing will become Education Minister, taking over from Mr Lawrence Wong, who becomes Finance Minister. Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung will be the next Health Minister, replacing Mr Gan Kim Yong, who takes over as Trade and Industry Minister.
All new appointments will take effect on May 15, after the next Parliament sitting.
The announcement comes after Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat announced earlier this month that he is stepping aside as a 4G leader for a younger person to become the future Prime Minister.
Mr Heng will continue as Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies. He will relinquish his portfolio as Finance Minister. /TISGFollow us on Social Media
YouTube
Telegram
Send in your scoops to [email protected]
Theindependent
Sense And Nonsense by Tan Bah Bah
Photo: screengrab from Youtube
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Finance Ministers do not necessarily become Prime Ministers. But being a Finance Minister at a time like now is significant. So I would say Lawrence Wong is very much the man of the hour. Watch this space. Do not take your eyes off this tea leaf swirling in the midst of a leadership-testing pandemic.
Of course, former Finance Ministers Goh Keng Swee, Lim Kim San, Hon Sui Sen, Tony Tan, Richard Hu and Tharman Shanmugaratnam did not become PM (one, Tony Tan, went on to be the President by the skin of his teeth and contributed to the birth of the Progress Singapore Party because of a disgruntled Tan Cheng Bock). But Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong did. Heng Swee Keat would have been the third FM to be PM. He was meant to be the DPM and Finance Minister leading the party and nation through Covid-19 and GE2020 on his way to the Istana. But we know what happened to him, with all due respect to his undoubted performance as FM.
In the original PAP 4G Leadership Transition Plan, there were really two contenders to be future PM – the ultimate government insider and economic tsar (Heng) versus the helicoptered let’s have a show of hands SAF general (Chan Chun Sing). Both turned out to be poor public communicators, for different reasons, which might not have been such a hurdle in the pre-Internet days but can lose the ruling party chunks of votes and dampen public trust and confidence nowadays especially when Opposition rivals are getting better than you in relating to the ground or in live parliamentary debates or any kind of open debate captured on Skype, Zoom or YouTube.
Heng has opted out, Chan is still plugging on but this time he is no longer so pre-eminent. He is merely one of a trio – he, Ong Ye Kung and Wong – in the race to be PM.
- Advertisement -
The odds favour Lawrence Wong. He has a number of factors in his favour.
His co-chairmanship of the Multi-ministry Task Force to handle Covid-19 shot him into contention for top level Cabinet posts even before he was being touted as a possible PM. Every other night, even as the virus raged through the foreign workers’ dormitories, he showed he was on top of the facts as he explained, with Kenneth Mak, MOH director of medical services, and Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, what was happening and the steps being taken to deal with each development. He has been doing this quite impressively since the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020 and the last press conference just took place on April 22, 2021. New Health Minister Ong will join him as co-chair of the MTF and will also be at the press conferences. He has some catching up to do, although as Transport Minister, he has had enough front-line experience in dealing with the public.
If the People’s Action Party is genuinely keen to have a post-Heng/Chan reset, the race will obviously be down from a trio to just a pair – Wong and Ong.
Of the two, Wong does not have historical baggage. He has not lost any election (as Ong had in the Aljunied GRC in GE2011), so does not have a loser’s tag should he go on to be the next PM. It is unfair to Ong but it may a factor in a everything being equal situation.
I have every confidence that Ong will buckle down in his new appointment as Health Minister and probably be a good one, like Gan Kim Yong. But, for the time being, he may be slightly in the shadow of Lawrence Wong.
Wong has a huge job and big boots to fill. Finance has always been a key ministry from the start of Singapore’s independence. All the names mentioned in the second paragraph of this column are mostly men of calibre, with unquestioned integrity and financial expertise. One or two were even legendary.
In normal times, the search for a competent Finance Minister would have been demanding in itself. Today, getting the right person for the post of Finance Minister of Singapore – a financial centre and a country with a growing economy – is even more exacting.
On top of everything, Wong has now to step into Heng Swee Keat’s role to deal with the economic disruption caused Covid-19.
Being appointed Finance Minister at a time like this when billions of dollars have to be justified and spent says something about Wong’s leadership trajectory. If he can continue to co-lead the MTF in the same unruffled and focused way that has won him no small measure of public confidence, Singapore’s next Finance Minister may well be the next PM – this time.
Tan Bah Bah, consulting editor of TheIndependent.Sg, is a former senior leader writer with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a local magazine publishing company.
Follow us on Social Media
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
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LinkedIn
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Send in your scoops to [email protected]
Sense And Nonsense by Tan Bah Bah
Photo: screengrab from Youtube
Author
- Advertisement -
Finance Ministers do not necessarily become Prime Ministers. But being a Finance Minister at a time like now is significant. So I would say Lawrence Wong is very much the man of the hour. Watch this space. Do not take your eyes off this tea leaf swirling in the midst of a leadership-testing pandemic.
Of course, former Finance Ministers Goh Keng Swee, Lim Kim San, Hon Sui Sen, Tony Tan, Richard Hu and Tharman Shanmugaratnam did not become PM (one, Tony Tan, went on to be the President by the skin of his teeth and contributed to the birth of the Progress Singapore Party because of a disgruntled Tan Cheng Bock). But Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong did. Heng Swee Keat would have been the third FM to be PM. He was meant to be the DPM and Finance Minister leading the party and nation through Covid-19 and GE2020 on his way to the Istana. But we know what happened to him, with all due respect to his undoubted performance as FM.
In the original PAP 4G Leadership Transition Plan, there were really two contenders to be future PM – the ultimate government insider and economic tsar (Heng) versus the helicoptered let’s have a show of hands SAF general (Chan Chun Sing). Both turned out to be poor public communicators, for different reasons, which might not have been such a hurdle in the pre-Internet days but can lose the ruling party chunks of votes and dampen public trust and confidence nowadays especially when Opposition rivals are getting better than you in relating to the ground or in live parliamentary debates or any kind of open debate captured on Skype, Zoom or YouTube.
Heng has opted out, Chan is still plugging on but this time he is no longer so pre-eminent. He is merely one of a trio – he, Ong Ye Kung and Wong – in the race to be PM.
- Advertisement -
The odds favour Lawrence Wong. He has a number of factors in his favour.
His co-chairmanship of the Multi-ministry Task Force to handle Covid-19 shot him into contention for top level Cabinet posts even before he was being touted as a possible PM. Every other night, even as the virus raged through the foreign workers’ dormitories, he showed he was on top of the facts as he explained, with Kenneth Mak, MOH director of medical services, and Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, what was happening and the steps being taken to deal with each development. He has been doing this quite impressively since the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020 and the last press conference just took place on April 22, 2021. New Health Minister Ong will join him as co-chair of the MTF and will also be at the press conferences. He has some catching up to do, although as Transport Minister, he has had enough front-line experience in dealing with the public.
If the People’s Action Party is genuinely keen to have a post-Heng/Chan reset, the race will obviously be down from a trio to just a pair – Wong and Ong.
Of the two, Wong does not have historical baggage. He has not lost any election (as Ong had in the Aljunied GRC in GE2011), so does not have a loser’s tag should he go on to be the next PM. It is unfair to Ong but it may a factor in a everything being equal situation.
I have every confidence that Ong will buckle down in his new appointment as Health Minister and probably be a good one, like Gan Kim Yong. But, for the time being, he may be slightly in the shadow of Lawrence Wong.
Wong has a huge job and big boots to fill. Finance has always been a key ministry from the start of Singapore’s independence. All the names mentioned in the second paragraph of this column are mostly men of calibre, with unquestioned integrity and financial expertise. One or two were even legendary.
In normal times, the search for a competent Finance Minister would have been demanding in itself. Today, getting the right person for the post of Finance Minister of Singapore – a financial centre and a country with a growing economy – is even more exacting.
On top of everything, Wong has now to step into Heng Swee Keat’s role to deal with the economic disruption caused Covid-19.
Being appointed Finance Minister at a time like this when billions of dollars have to be justified and spent says something about Wong’s leadership trajectory. If he can continue to co-lead the MTF in the same unruffled and focused way that has won him no small measure of public confidence, Singapore’s next Finance Minister may well be the next PM – this time.
Tan Bah Bah, consulting editor of TheIndependent.Sg, is a former senior leader writer with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a local magazine publishing company.
Follow us on Social Media
YouTube
Telegram
Send in your scoops to [email protected]
a certain princeling by the surname of Lee?
Loong wants to suck up to China, so all his brats have adopted the hanyu pinyin surname Li.
I judge a man during his ORD period. Will they bother do shore up their ministry and handover a good system to the next minister, I don't think so.
I feel that they can't be bothered. Probably happily clearing leave now before next posting. If you notice, the ministries that the ministers are handing over on May 15 have been shrouded in much controversies and failures in recent years.
I feel that they can't be bothered. Probably happily clearing leave now before next posting. If you notice, the ministries that the ministers are handing over on May 15 have been shrouded in much controversies and failures in recent years.
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