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What is a Pee Sai without a Pee Moh?
缺乏鼻毛的鼻屎算个啥?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Si...in.com&utm_campaign=BA SG&utm_medium=referral
Singapore still undecided on who will be its next leader
Leading contenders given crucial roles in cabinet reshuffle
MAYUKO TANI, Nikkei staff writer April 24, 2018 22:19 JST
SINGAPORE -- Singaporeans have to wait a while longer to find out who is closest to claiming the position of the country's prime minister. In a cabinet reshuffle announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, the three politicians -- Chan Chun Sing, Heng Swee Keat and Ong Ye Kung -- who are widely seen as the leading contenders, took leading ministerial positions.
Chan, currently a serving minister in the prime minister's office, was appointed as the trade and industry minister -- an important post for the trading nation. The 48-year-old former army chief will tackle sensitive trade issues and oversee tranformations of industry, although incumbent minister S Iswaran will handle trade negotiations.
The new cabinet takes effect on May 1.
Heng will remain in his current post of finance minister after the reshuffle. Formerly the principal private secretary to then-senior minister Lee Kuan Yew, and also former managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Heng has been given the additional role of assisting the prime minister on research and development matters at the National Research Foundation from May. At 57 years old the oldest of the three top candidates, he suffered a stroke in the middle of a cabinet meeting in 2016 and has undergone brain surgery, but came back to his post as finance minister just three months afterwards.
Ong, the current education minister, will also remain in the same position, but with wider responsibilities. Unlike a previous appointment, where he was one of two education ministers, he will single-handedly lead the ministry from May. The 48-year-old former civil servant has the shortest political career of the three, having entered politics only in 2015.
The views of observers are divided on how they view the changes today. "The cabinet reshuffle and new responsibilities does suggest that the running for the prime minister position is probably down to either Minister Heng or Minister Chan; no longer three," Chua Hak Bin, senior economist at Maybank Kim Eng Research, said.
Chua stressed the crucial role Chan is to take. "He will be taking charge of trade policies at a volatile time when a U.S.-China trade war may erupt and [U.S. President Donald] Trump's protectionist measures could hit small open economies like Singapore disproportionately hard," Chua pointed out. "[He] will be tested given his more limited market or private sector experience."
Others see this as still an open race. "There may even be room for another person to come into the picture," Manu Bhaskaran, CEO of think-tank Centennial Asia Advisors, said. He viewed the cabinet reshuffle as "no big surprise."
"Many office-holders elected in recent elections are getting new or expanded portfolios. I have decided to stretch the younger ones, giving many of them two ministries and additional responsibilities," Prime Minister Lee wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. After the reshuffle, politicians in their forties and fifties, known as the "fourth generation", will head two-thirds of the ministries, Lee said.
The leadership handover is going to be the third in the country's 53-year history as an independent nation. In 1990, Lee Kuan Yew, the late father of the current prime minister, passed the baton to Goh Chok Tong. Fourteen years later, in 2004, Lee junior succeeded Goh.
The next prime minister will have to tackle various complicated challenges. Singapore has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but it is facing issues including an aging population, a widening gap between rich and poor, as well as looming global protectionist trends and China's expanding influence in the Asian region.
The clear front runner in the race, however, has not emerged yet. In the latest cabinet changes, the office of deputy prime minister, currently shared by so-called "third-generation" leaders Teo Chee Hean and Tharman Shanmugaratnam, was unchanged. Recent prime ministers have spent time as deputy before they stepped up to the top job.
Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at Singapore Management University, said there would be another round of cabinet reshuffling to move one of the three top candidates to deputy prime minister. "Within the next 12 to 18 months, it will be quite clear who the successor will be. Otherwise we will be in trouble," he said.
It is expected that the group of 16 fourth-generation politicians, many of whom are cabinet members, are heavily involved in choosing their leaders. Singapore's consensus-based selection process is unique.
The People's Action Party has governed the city state for 53 years, since it became independent, and has held the vast majority of parliamentary seats throughout this period. As political stability is an important asset for Singapore, keeping the small nation's competitiveness, the current government is trying hard to ensure the upcoming succession will happen smoothly.
"Singapore probably needs a steady pair of hands to steer the ship at this stage," Chua noted.
