GCT and Lee Kuan Yew promoted to Emeritus Senior Minister

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PM Lee announces changes to Cabinet
Posted: 18 May 2011 1654 hrs


SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has announced changes to his Cabinet line-up.

Speaking at a news conference at the Istana, Mr Lee said it is an epochal change as Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew are leaving the Cabinet.

Both men announced their decision to step down last Saturday.

Mr Lee said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew is appointed as the senior advisor to Government Investment Corporation of Singapore.

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong is appointed as senior advisor to the Monetary Authority of Singapore and been given the title Emeritus Senior Minister.

Three more ministers will be retiring.

They are Deputy Prime Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for National Security Wong Kan Seng, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan and Transport Minister and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim.

Out of 14 ministries, 11 will have new ministers in charge.

Mr Lee said this will be a fresh team that will look at the future with a clean slate.

Their appointments will take effect on Saturday, May 21.

Mr Lee will have two Deputy Prime Ministers.

They are current Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean who will remain Deputy Prime Minister and will be Home Affairs Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for National Security.

Mr Teo's Defence portfolio will be taken over by current Education Minister Ng Eng Hen.

The other Deputy Prime Minister is Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam who will retain his Finance portfolio and also be Manpower Minister.

The new Education Minister will be newly-elected MP Mr Heng Swee Keat.

Newly elected Major-General Chan Chun Sing will be Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports as well as Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam will be Minister for Law and Foreign Affairs.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will become National Development Minister, a portfolio he volunteered for.

Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong will be the Health Minister.

Minister for Environment and Water Resources Mr Yaacob Ibrahim will head the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts.

Information, Communication and the Arts Minister Lui Tuck Yew will be Transport Minister and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan will be the new Minister for Environment and Water Resources.

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen will be Defence Minister.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang will remain Trade and Industry Minister.

Mr Lim Swee Say will remain as Minister in the Prime Minister's Office.

Mr S Iswaran will be promoted to Minister in Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry.

Senior Minister of State Ms Grace Fu for Education and National Development will become Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts and Ministry of Environment and Water Resources.

Minister of State, Prime Minister's Office Mr Heng Chee How will be promoted to Senior Minister of State, Prime Minister's Office.

Madam Halimah Yacob will be promoted to be the Minister of State for Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports.

Also promoted, Ms Josephine Teo who will be Minister of State for Finance and Transport.

Newly elected MPs Mr Tan Chuan Jin and Mr Lawrence Wong will be appointed Ministers of State.

Brigadier General Tan will be Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, Mr Lawrence Wong will be Minister of State for Defence and Education, Ms Amy Khor will be Minister of State for Health.

Mr Teo Ser Luck will be Minister of State for Trade and Industry.

Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Manpower, Mr Lee Yi Shyan will be Minister of State for Trade and Industry and National Development.

Minister of State for Home Affairs and Education Mr Masagos Zulkifli will be Minister of State for Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.

Mr Lee said Mr Tharman will be Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Prime Minister Lee will be the Chairman of the GIC.

- CNA/cc

 

[cooleo]

Instead of pulling out of politics, they seem to have gotten promotion!

 

[hairylee]

LKY - MP + Senior Advisor + Pensions = $4 million

GCT - MP + Senior Advisor + Emeritus SM + Pensions = $3.8 million

 

[tchinkoo]

Emeritus Senior Minister it's onli a title b4 they go!

 

[tua lam pah]

Emeritus Senior Minister.

what in the name of God is that???

 

[po2wq]

how much r emeritus sm paid? ... watz ze job scope of n emeritus sm? ...

ah loon shud cum clean wif it ...

if he doesnt, it wil offset ze firing of ah seng n ah tan ... he'll oni make himself look worse ...

 

[Microsoft]

Ting dey make a mistake...the correct title shd b Ignominy Senior Minister lah...:oIo:

 

[davetan3]

In academic terms, a emeritus professor is not paid, it is a title of honour.
Quote from wikipedia: Retired faculty may retain formal or informal links with their university, such as library privileges or office space. At some institutions faculty who have retired after achieving the rank of professor are given the title "professor emeritus" (male) or "professor emerita" (female).

 

[Char_Azn]

It looks like a pretty populist selection. The 3 most unpopular guys got kicked out. WKS didn't even get the usual treatment of getting a SM post. I think Balakrishnan only survived coz they ran out of experience guy. The 2 more credible ministars got the hot seats. I expected Tharman to be promoted to DPM when WKS gets the boot but didn't expect LHL to dump 3 profiles on him. Khaw now kena arrowed to clean up MBT's backside

 

[lianbeng]

lianbeng says, "now both of them can relak 1 corner enjoy chilli crap liao."

 

[saratogas]

Give them state title so that when they passed on... State can bao all the burial expenses...

 

[halsey02]

Emeritus Senior Minister.

what in the name of God is that???

Emeritus ( /ɨˈmɛrɨtəs/; plural emeriti; abbreviation emer.) is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita (/ɨˈmɛrɨtə/) is also sometimes used. from wikipedia

Soon, it will be Immortal Minister, if either one of them , 'kick the bucket'..

 

[ThePlen]

they are quite good at giving out new titles... will these "new-brooms" sweep cleaner?

 

[lianbeng]

lianbeng not surprised both ahlao still pulling puppet strings behind curtain.

 

[drifter]

Emeritus Senior Minister ? hahaha until now still power hungry ?

 

[Kuailan]

When COW come home he makes HDB cheaper,
every one would love him for the $8.00 HDB flat!!

 

[scbccb]

We are looking forward to their POSTHUMOUS tiles!

 

[khunking]

Why Lee Kuan Yew, Modern Singapore's Founding Father, Stepped Down

By Neel Chowdhury / Singapore Thursday, May 19, 2011

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072769,00.html#ixzz1Mtwc3Ceq
​

From the epochal to the mundane, the decisions of Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew have steered the history of his island nation for more than half a century. But as the political party Lee founded in 1954 seeks to shore up its sliding fortunes with a younger and more politically outspoken electorate, the 87-year-old man regarded as modern Singapore's founding father has withdrawn from day-to-day governance by quitting his Cabinet post along with Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who succeeded Lee as Prime Minister in 1990.
"The time has come for a younger generation to carry Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation," said Ministers Lee and Goh in their joint May 14 letter of resignation. Singapore's more "complex" situation was mirrored in the country's May 7 general election. The share of the popular vote for Lee's People's Action Party (PAP) fell to a historic low of 60.1%. Moreover, while Singapore has been ruled since 1959 (the year it became self-governing) by Lee's political party, an unprecedented six seats were won by the opposition Workers' Party (WP) in Singapore's 87-seat Parliament — triggering a sweeping reshuffle of Singapore's Cabinet after the results were announced. Of a total of 14 ministries, 11 will have new ministers in charge. In addition to Lee and Goh, three more ministers will also leave the Cabinet. As a result of the election and its aftermath, many analysts feel the country's political landscape has permanently changed. In a postelection report, economist Kit Wei Zheng from Citigroup wrote that the WP's ability to wrest away key constituencies like Aljunied, where Foreign Minister George Yeo lost his seat, may mark "the beginnings of an evolution into a two-party system [for Singapore] over the longer term."
While Lee has left the government, he will retain his place in Singapore's Parliament, in which he has sat since 1959, when he was elected for the first time as Prime Minister. As leader, Lee launched sweeping initiatives about his new nation's future while keeping a watchful eye over municipal activities like tree planting, rubbish collection and water conservation. Some of the laws that Lee enacted regulating personal behavior seemed over the top to some. Spitting on the sidewalks could result in a fine, for instance, and during the 1970s, male travelers in Singapore deemed to have excessively long hair could be barred from entering the country until they got it cut. Yet Lee's vision of Singapore's role in the global economy, combined with his attention to detail, was the key to the island state's eventual success. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once wrote: "Every great achievement is a dream before it becomes reality, and [Lee's] vision was of a state that would not simply survive but prevail by excelling."
Lee's mettle was tested early. Partly worried that Singapore could be cut off from the flows of Malaysian rubber and tin that were then the bulk of its exports, he steered Singapore into a merger with Malaysia in 1963. Forced to break with his country's neighbor just two years later, after a series of policy differences with then Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, Lee tearfully broke down as he announced the news on TV. Despite the setback, the episode may have underscored Lee's determination to lessen Singapore's dependence on its neighbors by reaching out to the wider world for investment and trade. By the time Lee stepped down as Prime Minister in 1990 to be succeeded by Goh, his Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Singapore boasted one of the world's busiest ports and was a manufacturing and logistics hub for multinationals like Hewlett-Packard, Seagate and IBM.
Lee's tenacity and willpower single-handedly converted a once sleepy backwater into a dynamic, first-world economy. Those same attributes governed his relationships with political adversaries. In 1976, Lee sued opposition politician J.B. Jeyaretnam for libel. Lee was awarded damages and costs. Jeyaretnam was eventually elected to Singapore's Parliament in 1981. More recently, Lee's combative style has begun to strike an increasingly discordant note in a country where the proliferation of social media like Facebook and Twitter has emboldened younger voters to be more critical of the government. Days before the May 7 poll, for instance, Lee warned Aljunied's voters they would "live and repent" if the PAP were defeated. Comments like these, wrote Citigroup's Kit, "were widely perceived to have inadvertently contributed to the decline in the PAP's performance." The higher cost of public housing and transport in Singapore in recent years, as well as an immigration policy perceived as too liberal, also substantially contributed to the erosion in the PAP's share of the vote.
Despite his resignation from the Cabinet, Lee's shadow will continue to loom large over Singapore. Reflecting in part the influence Britain's postwar socialist policies had on Lee while he was a student at Cambridge, when he assumed power in Singapore, Lee began to build a vast network of government flats that today houses 85% of Singaporeans. Lee also designed a state-run pension system that underpins public health care and that allows Singaporeans to draw on their savings for private-home purchases. Under Lee's rule, global companies like Singapore Airlines were set up by the government. And ever wary of his country's fragile position in Southeast Asia, Lee created an armed force from scratch, requiring every male Singaporean to enroll in the military for a two-year term after reaching the age of 18.
Far more prosperous and stable than it was in 1959, when Lee first swept to power, Singapore may be ready to move beyond his commanding style of governance. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Lee's eldest son, acknowledged in a postelection press conference that many voters "wish for the government to adopt a different style and approach." To what extent Singapore will relinquish or retain Lee's vast legacy to his country remains unclear. What is more clear is that Lee's exit from Singapore's Cabinet marks a turning point for a country whose destiny so far has been so powerfully shaped by one man.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072769,00.html#ixzz1MtwfqekR
​