Lee's son waits in wings

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi is the first leader of the 10-member Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to publicly express his readiness to cooperate with Singapore's next prime minister, current Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Lee Hsien Loong, who has, for many years, been tabbed as the replacement for incumbent Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

The national leadership succession is expected to take place around independence day, during Singapore's National Day Rally on Aug. 9

According to The Strait Times Interactive on Monday, Badawi -- who replaced Mahathir Mohamad as Malaysia's prime minister in October -- told a TV station that "while his dealings now were with Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, ... he knew DPM Lee and that 'there's no problem between Hsien Loong and I'".

Any sovereign state, including Singapore, has the right to choose its own way of picking its leader, and no country can claim its administration's system is the most perfect in the world. Two members of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Philippines and Indonesia, are holding direct nationwide presidential elections while other members have government systems of their own.

For many Indonesians, whose country is the world's third largest democracy after the United States and India, and who will for the first time elect their president on July 5, the model of leadership succession in Singapore may perhaps look out of fashion.

But whatever people say about Singapore's system, the tiny island state has become one of world's wealthiest and corruption- free nations. Of course, there is a cost that Singaporeans have to pay for the prosperity they now enjoy. Under such circumstances, can Indonesians argue, at least for the moment, that its choice of democratic system, provides better living conditions than those of Singapore?

Goh, 62, announced in April that he would hand over the national leadership to the eldest son of Singapore's founding father, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, as planned following the island state's economic recovery after last year's deterioration. His son was appointed as Goh's deputy in 1990, following Lee's resignation from the prime minister's post, which he had held since the country separated from Malaysia and became an independent state in 1965.

There is no doubt about the preparedness and capability of Hsien Loong to lead the country -- a position for which his father prepared him for a very long time. He is known as a superb bureaucrat. He has held the position of the country's equivalent of central bank chairman since 1998, when Asia was in a deep financial crisis, and in 2001 also became the country's finance minister.

The senior minister openly acknowledged that he had groomed his son to become Singapore's next leader after Goh. In his memoirs, From Third World To First, the senior Lee wrote: "Many of my critics thought this smacked of nepotism, that he was unduly favored because he was my son. On the contrary, as I told the party conference in 1998, the year before, that it would not be good for Singapore or for Loong to have him succeed me. He would be seen as having inherited the office from me when he should deserve the position on his merit."

Nevertheless, some anxiety exists among Singaporeans about their future leader, at least about his image of rigidity compared to Prime Minister Goh. Agence France-Presse, recently reported how, in a speech in January, he echoed his father's iron-fisted style in facing his political opponents or critics. "They are fully entitled to do so, but the government has to rebut or even demolish them," the news agency quoted him as saying.

Despite his limited contacts with other ASEAN leaders, there is no doubt that the younger Lee will be able to quickly adapt to other ASEAN leaders. Goh has proved himself as one of the grouping's key leaders, especially after Soeharto resigned in 1998.

However, other ASEAN members have often felt irritated with Singapore's policies, such as its decision to have bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with industrialized countries, including the U.S. and Japan, leaving other ASEAN members in a difficult position. In the war against terrorism, Singapore's leaders are also seen as often ignoring the sensitivities of Muslims in the region, as reflected from their public remarks.

In a bilateral context, there have been ups and downs in relations between Indonesia and Singapore. For many Singaporeans, Soeharto's policies during his tenure of not acting as a "big brother" in ASEAN are remembered as key elements for the rapid growth of economies and for political stability in the region.

Singaporeans, on the other hand, are understandably very sensitive about developments concerning their larger neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia. That was why they felt slighted by a statement of then President B.J. Habibie, who they felt had "belittled" Singapore by saying it was a mere "red dot" on the map compared to Indonesia.

A better understanding and greater respect for each other will certainly help to maintain the spirit of unity in the regional grouping in the future. In any case, when the deputy prime minister eventually takes over the helm from PM Goh, we do believe that the new leader will be ready to give his best contribution towards bringing greater prosperity, better security and greater political stability in this region.