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Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mentioned Monday that he’ll step down on Might 15 after twenty years on the helm, and hand energy to his deputy Lawrence Wong.
Lee, 72, will formally advise the city-state’s president to nominate Wong, who’s at present deputy prime minister and finance minister, to succeed him, his workplace mentioned in a short assertion. Wong, who has the unanimous help of lawmakers within the long-ruling Individuals’s Motion Social gathering (PAP), will probably be sworn in on the nationwide palace later the identical day, it mentioned.
Lee has served as prime minister and head of the PAP since August 2004.
Lee introduced final November that he would retire this 12 months and has already named Wong as his designated successor. Lee initially deliberate to step down earlier than turning 70, however these plans had been shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally complicating Lee’s retirement was a sequence of blunders by his first designated successor, Heng Swee Keat, culminating in what political scholar Michael D. Barr referred to as a “spectacularly embarrassing efficiency in the course of the Normal Election marketing campaign of 2020.” Heng stepped apart as leader-in-waiting in April 2021, over two years after he was initially tapped in November 2018. Lee and the PAP had been compelled to return to the drafting board in deciding on the subsequent prime minister.
Wong, previously the finance minister, was introduced as Lee’s new successor in April 2022; subsequent month, he’ll lastly take over Singapore’s high workplace. When Lee passes the baton on to Wong, it would finish a prolonged saga that started all the best way again in 2016.
“For any nation, a management transition is a big second. Lawrence and the 4G [fourth-generation] staff have labored onerous to realize the individuals’s belief, notably in the course of the pandemic,” Lee mentioned in a Fb publish on Monday. “I ask all Singaporeans to provide Lawrence and his staff your full help, and work with them to create a brighter future for Singapore.”
Lee has mentioned there isn’t any motive to delay the political transition and that passing the baton to Wong earlier than nationwide elections due subsequent 12 months will permit the 51-year-old politician to win his personal mandate and take the nation ahead.
Wong got here to prominence whereas serving to to coordinate Singapore’s struggle in opposition to COVID-19. He would be the city-state’s fourth chief since its independence in 1965.
The PAP, one of many world’s longest-serving events, retained its tremendous majority with 83 out of 93 parliamentary seats in 2020 common elections. However that was its worst efficiency after shedding some seats and help slipped.
Lee is the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, who grew to become Singapore’s first prime minister and constructed the resource-poor city-state into one of many world’s richest nations throughout 31 years in workplace. However Singapore has additionally been criticized for its tight authorities management, media censorship and use of oppressive legal guidelines and civil lawsuits in opposition to dissidents.
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