Singapore has announced that Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will take over as the country\u2019s next Prime Minister on May 15, according to Al Jazeera. Wong, 51, will succeed Lee Hsien Loong who has held the top job for two decades. Lee will \u201crelinquish his office on 15 May 2024\u201d, the Prime Minister\u2019s Office said in a statement on Monday evening. \u201cHe will formally advise the President to appoint Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Mr. Lawrence Wong to succeed him.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a video message released shortly afterwards, Wong said he accepted the position with \u201chumility and a deep sense of duty\u201d, Al Jazeera reported, citing the state-owned media Strait Times. \u201cI pledge to give my all in this undertaking,\u201d he said. Since the ruling party selected Wong as head of the \u201c4G,\u201d or fourth generation of leaders, in April 2022 politicians from the party hope to take control of the government in the upcoming years\u2013he has been seen as Lee\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n
Wong received praise for his handling of the island\u2019s response to the pandemic, reported Al Jazeera. Their first pick, Heng Swee Keat, a former minister of education and head of the central bank, abruptly left in 2021, upending the party\u2019s succession plans. Situated between Indonesia and Malaysia, the small island holds significant importance on global terms as a vital ally of both China and the United States.<\/p>\n
However, it is also dealing with more internal issues, mostly related to immigration and the growing cost of living, and the ruling People\u2019s Action Party has also been shaken by an uncommon corruption scandal. With bonuses included, the prime minister of Singapore receives an annual salary of 2.2 million Singapore dollars ($1.6 million), making him the highest-paid government official in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Singapore has announced that Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will take over as the country\u2019s next Prime Minister on May\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":39911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[13059,13060,3357],"class_list":["post-39910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-deputy-prime-minister-lawrence-wong","tag-prime-minister-ship","tag-singapore"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}