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Tag: PAP government

  • Tharman Shanmugaratnam: I Won’t Be PM Unless They Forced Me To

    Tharman Shanmugaratnam: I Won’t Be PM Unless They Forced Me To

    In a public forum about what lies ahead of Singapore at the SG50+ Conference held by the Institute of Policy Studies, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shamugaratnam unreservedly said that he will not be the next Prime Minister unless the ruling PAP Government forced him to. DPM Tharman said that he is neither interested in the PM role nor believe he is suitable for it:

    “Let me put it this way, we all have our preferences. And I was always, in sports, a centre half rather than centre forward. I enjoy playing half back and making the long passes, but I am not the striker.

    Unless I am forced to be, and I don’t think I will be forced to it, because I think we have got choices. It is not bad that we think so hard about succession, and we don’t always get it the way we expect it to be, but we think very hard about succession in Singapore.”

    Photo of Tharman by straitstimes Desmond Wee

    The forum host, CNN journalist Dr Fareed Zakaria, also asked DPM Tharman if Singapore will get to see a non-Chinese Prime Minister one day, of which DPM Tharman became politically-correct and ambiguously said “it is just a matter of time”.

    The issue on a non-Chinese Prime Minister has previously surfaced to the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong where he said it will not happen any time soon and that Singaporeans are not yet “totally race-blind and religion-blind”:

    “Will it happen soon? I don’t think so, because you have to win votes. And these sentiments – who votes for whom,and what makes him identify with that person – these are sentiments which will not disappear completely for a long time, even if people do not talk about it, even if people wish they did not feel it.

    …attitudes towards race had shifted in the last two to three decades as English provided more of a common ground, but said to get to “a position where everyone is totally race-blind and religion-blind, I think that is very difficult. You will not find it in any country in the world.”

    The Singapore Government has sparked heavy criticisms over the positions of the family and friends of the first PM Lee Kuan Yew. His eldest son, Lee Hsien Loong, became Singapore’s PM in 2004 and even until today, most people remains unconvinced Lee Hsien Loong attained his PM role without the help of his father. Lee Hsien Loong’s leadership has faced much criticisms as the PM leadership inherited the controversial aspect of his father’s (i.e. restriction of free speech), but none of the economic and social progress Singaporeans enjoyed during his father’s days. Lee Hsien Loong has been PM for the past 11 years, but unlike a real democracy, there is no legislated limit on the number of years he can be Prime Minister.

     

    Source:http://statestimesreview.com

  • Lee Hsien Loong On His Children And Their Political Inclinations

    Lee Hsien Loong On His Children And Their Political Inclinations

    Although grownup, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says his four children are, “at the moment”, not interested to enter politics.

    PM Lee shared this in a televised Mandarin interview with Chinese television host Yang Lan ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing in the first week of November. When asked if he would specially encourage or lead them in that direction, he said his children “have to find their own path in life”.

    “They have to choose [their lives], because a child’s personality and aptitude have to be taken into consideration,” he said, in a transcript translated by national newspaper The Straits Times. “Every child is different, parents would of course wish that their children can fly high, but they all have different natures, some may be more inclined towards the arts, some may be more interested in computers or science, this will have to be developed according to their interests.”

    Not much is known about PM Lee’s children, the first two of whom — 34-year-old Li Xiuqi and 32-year-old Li Yipeng — were born to his first wife Wong Ming Yang, who passed away after a heart attack, three weeks after she gave birth to Yipeng, an albino. His two sons with his current wife Ho Ching, whom he married three years later, are 27-year-old Li Hongyi and Lee Haoyi, now 25 years old.

    Lee’s third child Hongyi made the news in 2007, while he was serving his National Service, when he sidestepped the usual chain of command to file a lengthy complaint in an email sent to senior military officers and then-Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean. Li, a Public Service Commission scholarship holder, studied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then spent two years working as a product manager at internet giant Google, as part of a programme allowing scholars to spend a stint in the private sector before starting work in the Public Service. He later returned to Singapore, where he now works at the Infocomm Development Authority as a consultant. According to his LinkedIn profile, he started work there a year ago.

    Lee’s father, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, revealed in a dialogue in 2008 that Hongyi had written to his younger brother, Haoyi, to advise him not to take up a scholarship — this after Haoyi had scored 43 out of a possible 45 in his International Baccalaureate exams. Lee’s sister, Lee Wei Ling, wrote in a 2011 column that Haoyi had later joined his brother at MIT. According to his Facebook page, Haoyi interned at Facebook and also spent time at Dropbox.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com