What's in store for Lawrence Wong's Singapore?
After years of uncertainty, the 4G leadership group's underdog will become Singapore's next Prime Minister on May 15.
From underdog to likeliest candidate
On Monday, April 15, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced he would be stepping down from the city-state’s premiership after nearly two decades in office. He announced Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as his successor, confirming what had been brewing for some time regarding the ruling People’s Action Party succession plan.
To most in Singapore, the announcement that Wong would be taking over came to no surprise. Instead, it seemed like the logical conclusion to his growing presence within the Lion City’s fourth generation (4G) leadership group, the group of leaders who will ostensibly take over after Lee’s departure, which was formed in the aftermath of the 2015 general election. At the time, however, few would have pegged Wong as the likeliest candidate, and most would not have been able to situate his exact role within the leadership group.
The transition process started taking a more frontal place in public discourse following the 2020 general election, which was expected to be the last election for Lee. Many saw Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat as Lee’s intended successor, until he stepped aside from the 4G leadership group in April 2021, citing concerns that he would be in his mid-60s by the time he took over, preferring to give way to a “younger leader with a longer runway”.
Behind the scenes, however, some attributed his decision to lower than expected turnout during the general elections in his constituency in 2020.
Nonetheless, Heng’s withdrawal helped bring Wong into the spotlight, at a time when he was becoming a household name as the co-chair of Singapore’s Multi-Ministry Taskforce to address the COVID-19 crisis. His name and face became more familiar at a time when the question of leadership was becoming thorny.
Lee had initially set a tentative timeline for when he was hoping to give up office, although he later said he would remain in office throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Many experts concurrently pointed to the lack of a clear successor to Lee within the 4G leadership group as a major factor why the transition was delayed.
While the PAP has been in power in Singapore since 1959, before the city-state gained independence from the United Kingdom and later Malaysia, premiership transitions have followed a rigorous vetting process to ensure the selected candidate is up to the task, and welcomed by the public. In that sense, while the 4G transition seemed to stagger, it reflected the PAP’s intention to take more time to secure a viable, capable successor.
As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, vaccines started rolling out, and steps for reopening methodically followed. Through it all, Wong had become the face that most households were now familiar with, owing to his nightly televised broadcasts to update the population on the status of local COVID infections and reopening plans — a crucial step for Singapore’s middle-aged and older population, for whom cable television still plays an important role in access to information.
This isn’t to say Wong was a stranger to the city-state’s younger crowds, far from it. Gen Z Singaporeans became increasingly familiar with Wong’s face as he started appearing on social media more, through Instagram and TikTok where he got to share more candid aspects of himself.
From here on out, everyone in Singapore knew Wong likes to play the guitar, and is quite good at it indeed. As Taylor Swift made her way to Singapore for her 10-day stay, 6 of which she performed at Singapore’s National Stadium as her (controversial) only stop in Southeast Asia for the Eras Tour, Wong found another way to bond with his audience, and posted a cover of Swift’s hit song Love Story.
Referring to Wong as Singapore’s first social media Prime Minister isn’t unreasonable, insofar as he represents the first Prime Minister with a consolidated social media presence that reaches to a younger, more online generation that doesn’t relate to Istana televised broadcasts and official press releases shared on Facebook.
In doing so, Wong fills in one of PAP’s largest shortcomings that came to light in the aftermath of the 2020 general election, when the Worker’s Party (WP), Singapore’s main opposition party, scored its largest electoral gain ever, 10 seats out of 93 in Parliament, by attracting a younger fringe of the vote, particularly among first-time voters. Wong’s rise and growing social media popularity shows that, in those fast-changing times, PAP knows how to innovate to not just retain their voter base, but expand it as well.
The winds of change
Nonetheless, it would be naive to say the PAP’s future is secured as Wong is set to assume office next month. From COVID-19 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s growing suffocation of Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories, the world has changed significantly since the last general election, all of which also affect the way Singaporeans approach politics at home.
Arguably, changes from the past 4 to 5 years are only a microcosm of the broader societal change Singapore underwent between Lee and Wong. It’s worth nothing Wong will be the first Prime Minister born after Singapore become an independent country.
As a child in the late 70s and early 80s, he saw the early stages of the city-state’s extraordinary economic growth, the development of its social policy — he will also be the first Prime Minister to have grown up in a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat. It’s not so much that the housing type of a head of government matters; in this case, however, it makes Wong that much more relatable to the average Singaporean who grew up in a 3-bedroom HDB flat, attended a local public school, and frequented a specific place of worship.
On many levels, though, Wong faces an ever-changing society that oscillates between the winds of change that rock the world, and figuring out their own national identity at home.
The repeal of Section 377A, a British colonial law that criminalized consensual sexual relations between men, paved the way for a new social contract, and although the repeal was backed by a constitutional amendment cementing a heteronormative definition of marriage, it suggested the possibility to a younger generation of politically-interested Singaporeans that change is possible.
Since last October, when Israel escalated its encroachment onto the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank in retaliation for a Hamas offensive into Israeli territory, growing frustration over the international community’s inaction toward what is now considered genocidal intent has resulted in large-scale protests across the world.
While Singapore law prohibits political gatherings outside the designated Speakers Corner of Hong Lim Park, and without proper police approval to hold a protest there, many Singaporeans found ways to express solidarity and bring the question of Singapore’s relationship with Israel, as well as its humanitarian aid to Gaza, to the forefront of political discourse.
From online campaigns to a week-long film festival, Singaporeans have negotiated ways to show their solidarity and raise awareness to the unfolding atrocities. Simultaneously, the scope of unlawful protesting, as understood by the local law, has grown beyond any recent social or political issue since recurring unrest that characterized the city-state upon independence and throughout the 1970s.
In addition to grappling with the new social contract that seems to shape up, Wong will also inherit a Singapore known to be one of the most expensive cities in the world, from sky-high rental prices to growing inflation that has become the top concern for many local households.
The past 4 years have also proved critical for the long-term image of PAP. Beyond notable electoral gains for the opposition in 2020, the recent wave of political scandals, ranging from the high-profile corruption case against former Transport Minister S. Iswaran to the extramarital affair between Parliament Speaker Tan Chuan-Jin and PAP lawmaker Cheng Li Hui.
Both scandals tainted PAP’s longstanding ironclad, corruption free image, and although the opposition WP had to grapple with its own shortcomings, both incidents called for a need to effectively restore the party’s image and substantively strengthen the nexus of trust with its voter base.
No success story is linear, and fast-paced changes bring forth unforeseen problems. The Singapore Wong grew up in looks vastly different than the world-class city known to many today; in that sense, the challenges he will face are unlike any that his predecessors’s. With no blueprint for his term in office, Wong will have to figure out his own way, one that manages the fine task of driving Singapore through one of its most critical eras of change since becoming a high-income economy.