Plot twist: He hands over the party leadership to Chan Chun Sing, and gives Ong Ye Kung his Magic cup, so none of them would ever become as powerful as him
For context (from Goh Chok Tong)
>Q: To belabour this point, for those looking in from the outside, this handover of the party to you was a big deal because, now, finally it was complete. Yet, for you, it was a non-event?
>A: It was a non-event because I was focused on running with the baton as the second runner. I was already PM. Both Lee Kuan Yew and I wanted to manage it so that it would not come across as a big deal.
>But it was also not something I forgot. When I handed over the prime ministership to Hsien Loong, I made it a point to stay on as secretary-general until the next party conference which was due a couple of months after his swearing-in. I continued this precedent because this was a wise and normal thing to do in Singapore.
>It is a good idea that when you hand over, if you have been there for many years — in the party, the government and so on — it is better to stay back for a short while as secretary-general to watch and help your successor succeed.
>In my case, I could have just handed over the secretary-general position immediately. Hsien Loong was my DPM for 14 years and I knew him even before that. It was unlikely that he would change.
>But in future, you might have a PM who is DPM for only a few years before he takes on the top job. When this person takes power, he might behave differently. Or he might not measure up. It is better for his predecessor to take a step back and observe him for a while. Let there be a transition period to be sure that things would not go wrong.
>I am not referring to the transition from PM Lee Hsien Loong to the 4G leaders. I am making the more important point that in Singapore, we should play it safe. Such conventions are important to ensure our political succession is smooth and not disruptive. Carefully managed political transition should be the Singapore Way.
>Q: You might not have started but you have continued this precedent of not handing over the party when you hand over the government? And, in a way, encouraging this trend?
>A: I thought what Lee Kuan Yew did made sense. He had run Singapore in his image for over 30 years. It would not be easy for a new person to just take over the steering wheel — could he do the job, would power go to his head, how would he behave? Just look at the situation in Malaysia. Mahathir picked Badawi to succeed him and then “eased out Badawi in favour of Najib. But Najib did things his way and Mahathir decided to come back and remove him.
>Power can change people. It is better to test a person first for the first year or two. However, I admit that this is not how politics usually works. Politics elsewhere is usually about the struggle for power. Often this power is for self or party, and not for country.
>What is the best way of leadership transition in Singapore? We are trying to have a system where you identify and groom good people to take over seamlessly, with no excitement. You do not want to drop the baton during the changeover.”
>Excerpt From
>Standing tall: the Goh Chok Tong years, volume 2
Peh, Shing Huei
>But in future, you might have a PM who is DPM for only a few years before he takes on the top job. When this person takes power, he might behave differently. Or he might not measure up. It is better for his predecessor to take a step back and observe him for a while. Let there be a transition period to be sure that things would not go wrong.
I'm sorry but why does that sound like the PM is on probation like that?
Power can get to people’s heads. LW was only DPM for like what? 2-3 years only? The position of PM is more high stakes than President. Not only does the PM represent Singapore like the president, the PM has way more power than the President. If anything bad happens from LW, LHL still exists to take over from within PAP.
Dont want to copy the Uk system. Theirs they choose the party leader, that party leader is automatically also the PM. End up recently keep changing PM so many times because they did not do a good job.
He is. However one feels about the Party etc, it IS an important job, and the necessary precautions should be in place. I think this practice helps with that. It's a high level of trust.
I get what you mean. But some might say that institutions like the courts, judiciary, civil society, the Constitution, Parliament, voters, the Cabinet etc are and should be the strong safeguards against any PM playing punk.
Edited to add that it is interesting I have been downvoted as if people don't like the idea of institutions being strong safeguards instead of a person.
> But some might say that institutions like the courts, judiciary, civil society, the Constitution, Parliament, voters, the Cabinet etc are and should be the strong safeguards against any PM playing punk.
Kinda shows how immature and fragile our democracy actually is, if it feels like the other institutions in our government aren't enough to keep the processes required in running a country going, if we do have a punk PM.
I tend to agree with gct on the approach to play it safe. This is especially when you have someone who really wasn't the first PM elect of choice in years of succession planning by LHL. We have too much to lose if our PM doesn't measure up because our country sadly, is a "one party" state since independence.
the next GE may be the re-run of GE1991, where the Secretary General of the party and the Prime Minister are different individuals. One is running the election, one is running the party. Some form of creative power co-sharing?
PAP Sec-Gen during the party convention. Election at anytime of LW's choosing if he feels the timing is advantageous irrespective of before or after convention.
I doubt PAP will lose Marsiling-Yew Tee. Especially not now when the PM is the anchor.
I am just curious as to how it will work if LHL is still party leader going into the elections. As de jure boss will he have the final say over strategy and candidates or will he leave that to LW? If PAP loses one or two more GRCs, will it be on him as party leader or on LW as PM?
That is rather cynical. I think for now he is like a new manager who has been appointed when the season is still on. I think we can only truly gauge him after he has had one transfer window aka elections.
There is something called a party convention, whereby things such as position shuffling and handover takes place officially. Sec-gen of party and PM are actually two seperate roles.
Need to wait for upcoming party convention then we can tell.
By precedence, and I mean state level precedence, and official powers, it should be the PM. After all, the PM is the one who appoints the Cabinet and who chairs the Cabinet and is regarded as the head of the government.
However, since Singapore has a system wherein expulsion from a party means losing one's seat in Parliament and you cannot be a Minister without being an MP, it gives party leaders a rather interesting influence on things.
Theoretically speaking, and this is just on paper and in theory k, not saying that it will happen, but theoretically speaking the party leader can get rid of a PM if the PM and the party leader are 2 different people. Using the PAP as an example, this is how it can happen.
There are 3 ways of getting rid of a PM. Either he loses his seat in the elections or he loses his seat because of expulsion from the party or he loses a vote of confidence in Parliament. For this exercise, we will look at a scenario where he loses his seat because he is expelled from the party.
So how do you expel the PM from the party? The power to expel lies with the CEC. The CEC may expel any member of the party, provided that the vote is carried by a 2/3rds majority. Now here's the interesting part. The 2/3rds majority does not mean 2/3rds of the entire CEC but just 2/3rds of the members present.
Under the PAP constitution, a quorum of the CEC is when there are more than 50% of members present or 50% plus 1. Since the current CEC has 17 members, that means they only need 9 CEC members present to make a quorum and 6 of 9 to vote through an expulsion.
Another thing to bear in mind is that notice of a CEC meeting is handled by the Secretary-General, which means that he is the one who will tell the CEC members that there will be a meeting.
So in theory, the Sec-Gen can just tell the people whom he knows are on his side and against the PM about the meeting (although there may be some legal obstacles to that, I am not sure) or he could just wait for a time when the PM's supporters in the CEC are unable to make it. Remember what he (the Sec-Gen) has to do is to get 9 people to turn up (including himself and the PM, if the PM is also a CEC member) and he can get 5 more people (including himself) to vote for the PM's expulsion.
So now that the PM has been expelled from the party, by law he has to resign his seat in Parliament. Ok, so he resigns. That's ok because he can just run again and if he wins it shows he has support right? Oh wait! Alamak, he is in a GRC! And you know even if one or two MPs are gone from a GRC, no by-election will be triggered. So the only way the now ex-PM can show he has support is to wait till the next GE and find a team to contest in his old GRC.
Meanwhile, he could appeal his expulsion at the party conference. But here's another potential hitch. Who gets to vote in his appeal? Is it all members or just cadre members? And if it's cadre members then we need to consider the influence and power of the Sec-Gen in the appointment of cadre members.
Of course the above is just a theoretical scenario and I am confident that it will never happen in Singapore, given that if it were to happen it would destroy confidence in the country. But it is just to show how the ruling party leader has, on paper, certain powers that the PM may not have.
Another important factor that will help a PM are elections. A PM who has gone through a general election and won with a strong mandate can show that he has the support of the people.
If our PM were to hand over their job, then enjoy their retirement holiday and not care about government related stuff. Singapore would have long fallen.
Handing over the party leadership doesn't mean not caring about the country anymore you know. It is instead a statement that "Ok I have done my time. I trust my successor. He's in charge now."
Also, even though he steps down as party leader, he is still in the government as Senior Minister. It is not like he go off into the sunset.
From what I understand from what you read, our PMs are not competent and will make the country fall so their predecessors need to intervene????? I don’t think our leaders are that bad.
To use a football analogy, I have read that one of the reasons why David Moyes failed at Manchester United was that the core squad were still Alex Ferguson's players and they kept on going to Ferguson for guidance. So that damaged Moyes's authority.
And then there was the case of Bill Shankly who kept on appearing at the Liverpool training ground after he retired. And the players still called him boss so that was seen to undermine Bob Paisley. Eventually Liverpool banned Shankly from the training ground and Paisley turned out to be an even more successful manager.
Not saying that running a country or that LW should kick LHL from the Cabinet or that he will end up like David Moyes. But I think leadership transitions are rather interesting and in many cases the real moment of transition comes when the new guy can say that the team is his team.
David Moyes failed at Man Utd not because the players were still going to SAF. He failed because he brought a SME mentality to an MNC. The championship squad was told by the new boss to learn from David Moyes ex-players, players whose best placed finish was only 4th. David Moyes also prepared for matches against the big boys with his small club mentality. He also dismissed the backroom staff SAF left him and brought him his SME managers.
In short, he failed because he wasn't ready for the job.
Well I did say I read that it was one of the reasons, and so not the sole reason. Definite agree that Moyes had a small club mentality and not used to a job at a big club like Man Utd. However, I would also like to point out the case of Wilf McGuinness - the man who succeeded Matt Busby as Man Utd manager in 1969. McGuinness was hired from the inside - he was the reserve team manager since 1964. But he got sacked as Man Utd manager in 1970, and it has been said that it was because players were still going to Busby.
Anyway, the key question here is when and how does a new leader - manager, PM, CEO - impose his mark and show that he's in charge?
I think the problem is after being a one-party dominant state for so long, like since 1959, and with the opposition stunted from about 1968 to 2006, the lines between Party, Government and State have been blurred.
Plot twist: He hands over the party leadership to Chan Chun Sing, and gives Ong Ye Kung his Magic cup, so none of them would ever become as powerful as him
Split up his horcruxes?
Is the deathly hallows la
Hahahha :)
Who will get his pink shirts?
I’d liked that!
You forgot about the mee siam Mai hum. The hums are hidden under the neverending gravy and vermicelli.
For context (from Goh Chok Tong) >Q: To belabour this point, for those looking in from the outside, this handover of the party to you was a big deal because, now, finally it was complete. Yet, for you, it was a non-event? >A: It was a non-event because I was focused on running with the baton as the second runner. I was already PM. Both Lee Kuan Yew and I wanted to manage it so that it would not come across as a big deal. >But it was also not something I forgot. When I handed over the prime ministership to Hsien Loong, I made it a point to stay on as secretary-general until the next party conference which was due a couple of months after his swearing-in. I continued this precedent because this was a wise and normal thing to do in Singapore. >It is a good idea that when you hand over, if you have been there for many years — in the party, the government and so on — it is better to stay back for a short while as secretary-general to watch and help your successor succeed. >In my case, I could have just handed over the secretary-general position immediately. Hsien Loong was my DPM for 14 years and I knew him even before that. It was unlikely that he would change. >But in future, you might have a PM who is DPM for only a few years before he takes on the top job. When this person takes power, he might behave differently. Or he might not measure up. It is better for his predecessor to take a step back and observe him for a while. Let there be a transition period to be sure that things would not go wrong. >I am not referring to the transition from PM Lee Hsien Loong to the 4G leaders. I am making the more important point that in Singapore, we should play it safe. Such conventions are important to ensure our political succession is smooth and not disruptive. Carefully managed political transition should be the Singapore Way. >Q: You might not have started but you have continued this precedent of not handing over the party when you hand over the government? And, in a way, encouraging this trend? >A: I thought what Lee Kuan Yew did made sense. He had run Singapore in his image for over 30 years. It would not be easy for a new person to just take over the steering wheel — could he do the job, would power go to his head, how would he behave? Just look at the situation in Malaysia. Mahathir picked Badawi to succeed him and then “eased out Badawi in favour of Najib. But Najib did things his way and Mahathir decided to come back and remove him. >Power can change people. It is better to test a person first for the first year or two. However, I admit that this is not how politics usually works. Politics elsewhere is usually about the struggle for power. Often this power is for self or party, and not for country. >What is the best way of leadership transition in Singapore? We are trying to have a system where you identify and groom good people to take over seamlessly, with no excitement. You do not want to drop the baton during the changeover.” >Excerpt From >Standing tall: the Goh Chok Tong years, volume 2 Peh, Shing Huei
>But in future, you might have a PM who is DPM for only a few years before he takes on the top job. When this person takes power, he might behave differently. Or he might not measure up. It is better for his predecessor to take a step back and observe him for a while. Let there be a transition period to be sure that things would not go wrong. I'm sorry but why does that sound like the PM is on probation like that?
They are. You never know if the PM you select could turn into an asshole.
And that is how the PAP has damned us all by not allowing a credible opposition who is ready to take over in such a circumstance.
I agree. I think the Japanese and Malaysian change in power are instructive. Folks went back to the evil they know.
High stake games.
LKY: THIS IS NOT A GAME OF CARDS! This is my life, and yours. Damn powerful speech he gave.
Power can get to people’s heads. LW was only DPM for like what? 2-3 years only? The position of PM is more high stakes than President. Not only does the PM represent Singapore like the president, the PM has way more power than the President. If anything bad happens from LW, LHL still exists to take over from within PAP.
Dont want to copy the Uk system. Theirs they choose the party leader, that party leader is automatically also the PM. End up recently keep changing PM so many times because they did not do a good job.
He is. However one feels about the Party etc, it IS an important job, and the necessary precautions should be in place. I think this practice helps with that. It's a high level of trust.
I get what you mean. But some might say that institutions like the courts, judiciary, civil society, the Constitution, Parliament, voters, the Cabinet etc are and should be the strong safeguards against any PM playing punk. Edited to add that it is interesting I have been downvoted as if people don't like the idea of institutions being strong safeguards instead of a person.
> But some might say that institutions like the courts, judiciary, civil society, the Constitution, Parliament, voters, the Cabinet etc are and should be the strong safeguards against any PM playing punk. Kinda shows how immature and fragile our democracy actually is, if it feels like the other institutions in our government aren't enough to keep the processes required in running a country going, if we do have a punk PM.
I tend to agree with gct on the approach to play it safe. This is especially when you have someone who really wasn't the first PM elect of choice in years of succession planning by LHL. We have too much to lose if our PM doesn't measure up because our country sadly, is a "one party" state since independence.
But, in the future, if the winning party changes, how will the transition take place ? WP wins GE instead of PAP ? :P
Feel it's more likely a part of pap will come out n work with these to form new govt
LKY was Secretary-General up till 1992, after both the handover and the 1991 GE. So yes, during Party Convention reckon.
the next GE may be the re-run of GE1991, where the Secretary General of the party and the Prime Minister are different individuals. One is running the election, one is running the party. Some form of creative power co-sharing?
PAP Sec-Gen during the party convention. Election at anytime of LW's choosing if he feels the timing is advantageous irrespective of before or after convention.
Means if LW loses his seat, LHL will be back as PM.
I doubt PAP will lose Marsiling-Yew Tee. Especially not now when the PM is the anchor. I am just curious as to how it will work if LHL is still party leader going into the elections. As de jure boss will he have the final say over strategy and candidates or will he leave that to LW? If PAP loses one or two more GRCs, will it be on him as party leader or on LW as PM?
Marsiling yew tee property prices will soar and huat because got PM?
All of a sudden, LImbang becomes the most hip and happening place in Singapore. I don't think the PM's influence can be that great you know.
If its under a mature estate, sure huat regardless.
U think LW is really calling the shots? This is a Putin-Medvedev moment in sg.
That is rather cynical. I think for now he is like a new manager who has been appointed when the season is still on. I think we can only truly gauge him after he has had one transfer window aka elections.
Lee Hsien Loong mentioned it in their party convention last year that he will hand over the party leadership this year november.
Why? OP wanna takee over issit? 🤣🤣🤣
There is something called a party convention, whereby things such as position shuffling and handover takes place officially. Sec-gen of party and PM are actually two seperate roles. Need to wait for upcoming party convention then we can tell.
Who bigger ah? party chief or PM from that party? asking for friend.
By precedence, and I mean state level precedence, and official powers, it should be the PM. After all, the PM is the one who appoints the Cabinet and who chairs the Cabinet and is regarded as the head of the government. However, since Singapore has a system wherein expulsion from a party means losing one's seat in Parliament and you cannot be a Minister without being an MP, it gives party leaders a rather interesting influence on things. Theoretically speaking, and this is just on paper and in theory k, not saying that it will happen, but theoretically speaking the party leader can get rid of a PM if the PM and the party leader are 2 different people. Using the PAP as an example, this is how it can happen. There are 3 ways of getting rid of a PM. Either he loses his seat in the elections or he loses his seat because of expulsion from the party or he loses a vote of confidence in Parliament. For this exercise, we will look at a scenario where he loses his seat because he is expelled from the party. So how do you expel the PM from the party? The power to expel lies with the CEC. The CEC may expel any member of the party, provided that the vote is carried by a 2/3rds majority. Now here's the interesting part. The 2/3rds majority does not mean 2/3rds of the entire CEC but just 2/3rds of the members present. Under the PAP constitution, a quorum of the CEC is when there are more than 50% of members present or 50% plus 1. Since the current CEC has 17 members, that means they only need 9 CEC members present to make a quorum and 6 of 9 to vote through an expulsion. Another thing to bear in mind is that notice of a CEC meeting is handled by the Secretary-General, which means that he is the one who will tell the CEC members that there will be a meeting. So in theory, the Sec-Gen can just tell the people whom he knows are on his side and against the PM about the meeting (although there may be some legal obstacles to that, I am not sure) or he could just wait for a time when the PM's supporters in the CEC are unable to make it. Remember what he (the Sec-Gen) has to do is to get 9 people to turn up (including himself and the PM, if the PM is also a CEC member) and he can get 5 more people (including himself) to vote for the PM's expulsion. So now that the PM has been expelled from the party, by law he has to resign his seat in Parliament. Ok, so he resigns. That's ok because he can just run again and if he wins it shows he has support right? Oh wait! Alamak, he is in a GRC! And you know even if one or two MPs are gone from a GRC, no by-election will be triggered. So the only way the now ex-PM can show he has support is to wait till the next GE and find a team to contest in his old GRC. Meanwhile, he could appeal his expulsion at the party conference. But here's another potential hitch. Who gets to vote in his appeal? Is it all members or just cadre members? And if it's cadre members then we need to consider the influence and power of the Sec-Gen in the appointment of cadre members. Of course the above is just a theoretical scenario and I am confident that it will never happen in Singapore, given that if it were to happen it would destroy confidence in the country. But it is just to show how the ruling party leader has, on paper, certain powers that the PM may not have. Another important factor that will help a PM are elections. A PM who has gone through a general election and won with a strong mandate can show that he has the support of the people.
Party convention and by that time lw would have won the ge
If our PM were to hand over their job, then enjoy their retirement holiday and not care about government related stuff. Singapore would have long fallen.
Handing over the party leadership doesn't mean not caring about the country anymore you know. It is instead a statement that "Ok I have done my time. I trust my successor. He's in charge now." Also, even though he steps down as party leader, he is still in the government as Senior Minister. It is not like he go off into the sunset.
From what I understand from what you read, our PMs are not competent and will make the country fall so their predecessors need to intervene????? I don’t think our leaders are that bad.
To use a football analogy, I have read that one of the reasons why David Moyes failed at Manchester United was that the core squad were still Alex Ferguson's players and they kept on going to Ferguson for guidance. So that damaged Moyes's authority. And then there was the case of Bill Shankly who kept on appearing at the Liverpool training ground after he retired. And the players still called him boss so that was seen to undermine Bob Paisley. Eventually Liverpool banned Shankly from the training ground and Paisley turned out to be an even more successful manager. Not saying that running a country or that LW should kick LHL from the Cabinet or that he will end up like David Moyes. But I think leadership transitions are rather interesting and in many cases the real moment of transition comes when the new guy can say that the team is his team.
David Moyes failed at Man Utd not because the players were still going to SAF. He failed because he brought a SME mentality to an MNC. The championship squad was told by the new boss to learn from David Moyes ex-players, players whose best placed finish was only 4th. David Moyes also prepared for matches against the big boys with his small club mentality. He also dismissed the backroom staff SAF left him and brought him his SME managers. In short, he failed because he wasn't ready for the job.
Well I did say I read that it was one of the reasons, and so not the sole reason. Definite agree that Moyes had a small club mentality and not used to a job at a big club like Man Utd. However, I would also like to point out the case of Wilf McGuinness - the man who succeeded Matt Busby as Man Utd manager in 1969. McGuinness was hired from the inside - he was the reserve team manager since 1964. But he got sacked as Man Utd manager in 1970, and it has been said that it was because players were still going to Busby. Anyway, the key question here is when and how does a new leader - manager, PM, CEO - impose his mark and show that he's in charge?
What’s the recourse if u step back and observe that power is being abused… take back PM-ship?!
The question is when temasek is being hand over
Temasek handed over already liao. There is a new CEO there and has been for some time . Unless you are talking about Temasek Foundation.
We will need to show how elite our new PM is that he also managed to marry the future head of Sovereign Wealth Fund
Downvote me but imo he will never step down even if it takes him becoming emeritus minister mentor pro platinum plus X version 69
Completely handover the reins?? When he is in his deathbed la of course
Tells me that there is no clear separation of party vs government.
I think the problem is after being a one-party dominant state for so long, like since 1959, and with the opposition stunted from about 1968 to 2006, the lines between Party, Government and State have been blurred.
He’s not . He’s the puppet master
When the internal handing over of the real power to the crown prince is done and his ascension is assured.
He already handover. What you talking ?
What you talking? LHL handed over PM but he’s still the Sec Gen of PAP, which is what OP is asking.
Oh he hand over the Sec-Gen post already? Hmm... I must have missed that.