CCTV news client news, on May 13, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong submitted his resignation to President Shanthartaman. Lee Hsien Loong said he and his current government will officially step down on May 15.
Source: CCTV news client
It is reported that Prime Minister-designate Lawrence Wong has accepted the president's invitation to form a government, and he will lead a new cabinet and take the oath of office on May 15. According to the new cabinet, Lawrence Wong will continue to manage the finance ministry when he takes over as prime minister. The current Minister of Trade and Industry, Gan Kim Yong, is also the Deputy Prime Minister, replacing Lawrence Wong as Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Lee Hsien Loong will step down on May 15, and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong will be sworn in as the new prime minister at the presidential palace on the same day, according to information released by the Prime Minister's Office on April 15.
Lawrence Wong also previously said that Lee Hsien Loong would remain in the cabinet as Senior Minister of State after stepping down on May 15.
Lee Hsien Loong (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
On 9 May, Lee Hsien Loong presided over the last cabinet meeting of his tenure. Lee Hsien Loong thanked his Cabinet colleagues for their unwavering support and expressed the honour of leading the Cabinet team over the past 20 years. Prime Minister-designate Lawrence Wong said he would work closely with his cabinet colleagues to leverage the strength of his team to lead Singapore forward. He also said that the new cabinet will be announced next week.
The 72-year-old Lee Hsien Loong entered politics in the 80s of the 20th century, serving as Singapore's Second Minister of Defence, Minister of Trade and Industry, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. He was appointed Prime Minister of Singapore in August 2004 and has been re-elected ever since.
Lawrence Wong, 51, was first elected to parliament in 2011 and has served in Singapore's Defence, Communications and Journalism, Culture, National Development, Education, Finance and other ministries and was the head of Singapore's Task Force to Combat the Pandemic. In 2022, Lawrence Wong was elected as the new leader of the fourth generation of the ruling People's Action Party. In November 2023, Lee Hsien Loong announced at the PAP congress that he would hand over the baton to Lawrence Wong.
Lawrence Wong (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Singapore seceded from Malaysia in August 1965 to form the Republic of Singapore.
Singapore's three previous prime ministers were all from China. The ancestral home of the first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the third Prime Minister since 2004 Lee Hsien Loong was Dapu County, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, and the ancestral home of the second Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was Yongchun County, Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province. Lawrence Wong, who is about to become Singapore's fourth prime minister, is originally from Hainan.
Another point that shares the same as Singapore's previous three prime ministers is that Lawrence Wong is also an elite of Singapore's elite, a scholar-type politician. His political career is not much different from that of Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong, having participated in parliamentary elections, government departments, and the Central Executive Committee of the People's Action Party, the core power body. Wong also served as Lee Hsien Loong's chief private secretary from 2005 to 2008.
Source: Xinhua News Agency, CCTV news client