Hsien Loong moving young gun minister from cabinet to the speaker’s chair?
Social and family development minister Tan Chuan-Jin had been one of six contenders to take over from the Lion City’s premier when he retires
By Bhavan Jaipragas
6 Sep 2017
Singapore has inched closer to finding out who will succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, after the premier surprised the Lion City by reassigning a popular minister thought to be among six contenders for the top job.
The prime minister’s announcement on Wednesday that he was recommending the social and family development minister Tan Chuan-Jin as the city state’s next parliament speaker was “confounding and confusing”, one observer said, as the move all but snuffed out the former army brigadier general’s chances for top political leadership.
Singapore’s social and family development minister Tan Chuan-Jin. File photo
Tan will need to quit as a cabinet minister to take up his new role. He will be appointed by lawmakers when parliament next sits on Monday. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) holds 83 out of 89 elected seats. The speaker position fell vacant in August after the incumbent Halimah Yacob resigned to stand in the country’s impending presidential election.
Lee Hsien Loong with a young Tan Chuan-Jin in 1989. Photo: Facebook
Tan, who made his political debut in 2011, was previously seen as among a group of six “fourth generation” ministers who were being primed to take over from Lee and his key lieutenants upon their expected retirement soon after the next polls due in 2021.
Lee, the son of Singapore’s late founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, took office as the country’s third prime minister in 2004.
On Wednesday, Tan dismissed talk that he had been eased out of the apex of politics, telling local reporters that there were many “different roles [and] many different pathways” in public service.
Singapore-based politics researcher Mustafa Izzuddin said the move was “confounding and confusing”.
TIPPED TO BE IN CORE TEAM
“Tan Chuan-Jin was widely tipped to be part of the core leadership team to take Singapore forward upon the stepping down of the current leadership team under Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong,” said Mustafa, a fellow at the Lion City’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute think tank.
Eugene Tan, another long time Singapore politics observer, said Lee’s recommendation for Tan to be the next speaker “does suggest that he will probably not feature prominently in the overall leadership succession”.
“His exit is very unexpected as it was not apparent that he was not equal to the task of taking on bigger challenges,” said Tan, a law professor at the Singapore Management University.
The minister’s exit from cabinet “does take away some flair, diversity and the much needed contrarian approach in the fourth generation leadership,” Tan added.
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