SINGAPORE - Finance Minister Lawrence Wong has been selected to be the leader of the PAP's fourth-generation (4G) team, paving the way for him to be Singapore's next prime minister.
Cabinet ministers affirmed their choice of Minister Lawrence Wong, 49, as the leader of the 4G team on Thursday (April 14), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a statement.
This decision was endorsed by all Government MPs in a party caucus, it added.
The dominant political question among the few observers of singapore politis has been answered. The PAP's electoral dominance( last election haul of 10 opposition mps was considered a record victory) and to hide their internal dirty laundry and disputes tend to make observing Singapore a politics in frustration with designs being given without much knowledge of the drama behind that.
The one exception to that has been the question of Prime Ministerial succession, Lee Hsien Loong son of legendary prime minister Lee Kuan Yew seems to have broken the streak of dynastical politics, with the only other politically active members of his family having fallen out and joined the oppostion. 2 previous designated successors have fallen flat, with Foregin Minister George Yeo(a colorful foregin minister who's retirement has been interesting) loosing hs seat in a surprising oppostion victory motivated by anti-immigration sentiment in 2011.
THe next chosen successor Heng Swee Keat, had a poor performance in the 2021 election where he was moved the marginal East Coast constituency to help shore up that seat* but had a disastorus campaign launch* and generally disappointing performance over the course of the election seemed to have moved him out of contention for the leadership.
Lawerence Wong is one of the most well known minister in singapore as he was in charge of our covid-19 response which was generally considered quite good, with the country having a high vaccination rate and generally being opend for international travel(I personaly disagree due to the inhuman conditions we put our migrant workers in but that is a rare opinion that isn't shared much here), avoiding the extremes of Chinas zero-covid and the more lax western approach. Otherwise he remains a pretty standard PAP minister with nothing realy notable about their portoflio or historical policies.
*singapore election are run on the basis of multi-member district allocated via FTPTP, so the party that get's 51% of the vote in a district can be allocated all 6 mps for the multi-member GRC. This lead to strong or well known minister being spread around to marginal counstieuncies to help shore them up(which isn't saying much given that the PAP wins 60+% of the vote, with the oppostion being fairly fragmented with presicley one seat that could be considred safe oppostion
**video of the disastrous campaign launch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTrndDwYWqs https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/lawrence-wong-endorsed-as-leader-of-paps-4g-team