by Simon Lim
The Minister of Home Affairs and Law, K Shanmugam said that Singaporeans will have a clearer picture of the next prime minister in 2019. I didn’t like what I have read. I will explain.
When the PAP won the general election in 2015, PM Lee Hsien Loong – accompanied by Tharman Shanmugaratnam – said that among his key tasks was to work on his succession. Now, 3 years have passed and there are still no clear signs of whom – among the 4G ministers – will succeed him as Prime Minister.
That is bad – what PM Lee has said so eloquently then and so many people heard him seem to have completely evaporated and gone with the winds.
I grade him very poorly. I believe that many keen Singapore observers cannot fail to see that too.
Despite being the head of government, his inability to produce a clear successor is a clear sign of his lack of leadership, lack of urgency, incompetency and even utter irresponsibility.
He clearly fails to understand enough that the Prime Minister is the single most important member of the Cabinet. Starting with him, our country and foreign investors draw their confidence and directions and on that score.
He is a two-time cancer survivor and he nearly fainted on stage during the 2017 National Day Rally. His health is a very big question mark that hangs not only around his neck, but also over our country’s future.
People support a government for various reasons. Some for patriotic reasons, some for personal reasons, some have their own hidden agendas and the rest are mere followers of others.
But to many Singaporeans – behind the well packaged facades of Gardens by the Bay, the Jewel and those blaring F15s flypasts etc – the cost of just getting by, jobs and wages under the useless Lee Hsien Loong’s government have definitely taken some very hard knocks.
Think!