Singapore succession in place as PM Goh prepares for exit

Singapore succession in place as PM Goh prepares for exit

Roberto Coloma, Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Singapore's political succession is now in place as Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong begins his last big mission: restore
economic growth before stepping down as chief executive of
Singapore Inc.

Goh, 60, plans to hand over power halfway through his new
five-year term if Singapore pulls out of its current recession by
then, setting the stage for his designated heir Deputy Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong to take over.

The new cabinet was sworn in Friday with the spotlight on Lee,
49, son of the first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, 78, who in 1990
stepped aside in favor of Goh but is still in the cabinet with
the special title of Senior Minister.

"In two to three years' time, our economic growth should have
resumed. By then, the new crew should be ready to take over the
leadership baton," Goh said in a speech after the oath-taking.

Like a company chief executive preparing to move upstairs, Goh
is scouting around for future leaders of Singapore Inc., as the
republic is known because of the major role played by the state
in the economy and the corporate methods used in running the
government.

Goh told AFP in an interview that he would not negotiate his
future role with his successor, but will remain an MP. He said
that if asked, he could play an "advisory role" similar to that
of the elder Lee.

The junior Lee has meanwhile assumed more powers, taking over
the finance ministry in addition to being chairman of the
Monetary Authority of Singapore and head of a committee studying
the long-term restructuring of the economy.

Goh's People's Action Party (PAP) has ruled Singapore since
1959. It walked off with 82 of the 84 seats and 75 percent of the
votes cast in the Nov. 3 elections, including 55 that were not
even contested by the feeble opposition.

Emil Bolongaita, an assistant professor of public policy at
the National University of Singapore, said the succession process
was not exceptional or unusual.

He said Singapore has a "dominant party system" under which
the PAP has its own internal rules and dynamics in deciding the
succession issue.

"Because the PAP remains the dominant party, the real politics
and the real election is within the party," he said. "As with
similar parliamentary regimes, who heads the party heads the
government."

"Because of the PAP's party dominance the succession process
is very much an organizational process. That's not to say they
don't take external factors and domestic factors into
consideration. The last elections certainly demonstrated this."

Professor P. Ramasamy, a political scientist at the National
University of Malaysia, said Lee's imminent rise to the top was
no surprise but he was "slightly puzzled" that Goh gave a
timetable for stepping down.

"In the Southeast Asian context prime ministers stay for a
very long time," he said, citing Lee Kuan Yew, who was prime
minister for 31 years, Malaysia's prime minister for the past 20
years Mahathir Mohamad, and former Indonesian President Soeharto,
who ruled for 32 years.

"Maybe times are changing, maybe there is some subtle pressure
on Goh Chok Tong," Ramasamy said. "Why does he want to quit so
early? He has not been in power for so long. He's not that old.
He's not been performing miserably."

But Goh told AFP that Singapore had a "unique system" and
stressed the need to keep bringing in new faces as part of a
"conveyor belt" process of leadership renewal.

He said he was himself recruited by the elder Lee in 1972 when
he was a shipping executive running the Neptune Orient Lines, and
it was now his turn to convince "bright young people" to join the
government.

With a handpicked core group of key ministers in their forties
and fifties now in position, Goh said he would now look for
promising Singaporeans under 35 from whose ranks another future
premier could emerge.