The Prime Minister of Singapore Should Resign and Retire

Lee Hsien Loong has been Prime Minister of Singapore for nearly 10 years (since the 12th of August 2004). He has been in politics for 30 years. He is the 2nd longest serving Head of Government in ASEAN after Cambodia's Hun Sen. (We'll discount Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei since he's a Monarch). The PM is also one of the longest serving leaders in the world (I don't know why the main stream media (MSM) refers to him as PM Lee, it's as if we got more than 1 PM in office). Almost all of his contemporaries have quit, been voted out or on the verge of retirement. Indonesia's Yudhoyono, also elected in 2004 will make way for a successor soon.

 Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became Indonesia's President in 2004. After 2 successful terms he's stepping down once his successor is elected later this year.

Even China whom the Singapore Govt does it best to be in its good books (some would even say we model ourselves after them and vice-versa), changes its leaders every 10 years. Clearly in the rest of the world, the era of long serving leaders has waned. In democracies like the UK and Australia, long Premierships (Blair and Howard) seemed to portray tiredness, a lack of new ideas and most crucially a PM that's becoming out of touch with the electorate and has reached his 'sell-by date.' Unfortunately the same can also be said of our PM.

Like Jiang Xemin before him, China's Hu Jintao served for 10 years as leader before handing over power. Given the close relationship between the CCP and PAP, shouldn't the PM take a leaf out of their book?

I don't want to go on about Lee Kuan Yew's long tenure as PM and in Govt, he came to power in a different era, and much has changed since he left the Premiership. Goh Chok Tong lasted 14 years, but even at the end, you could sense he's done all that he could have done, the time had come to hand over to younger man or someone new with fresher ideas - in this case, Lee Hsien Loong. 10 years on, it's the PM's turn to be someone from a different era and who's increasingly becoming out of touch with the younger generation.

Goh Chok Tong did look a bit wearied after 14 years in office. After having won the 'war' over SARS, he wisely decided it was the appropriate time to handover the Premiership. 

I don't want to go into his policy failures or successes, I think others have covered that and you can be sure the MSM will trumpet the latter, while those with the opposition will be quick to suggest incidents of the former. Rather it's the writing on the wall, that no matter which way the MSM or PAP want to paint it, that's inescapable - the PM has presided over an election where PAP support has plummeted and is almost certain to plummet further in the next elections. The 1 litmus test that a party leader can show he continues to enjoy the public confidence, is the verdict in his favour at the polls.

Only a comprehensive victory in Pasir Ris - Punggol GRC over a weak SDA team, saved the PAP's vote share from dipping below 60%

In 2006, the PM led the PAP to a resounding victory, but by 2011, although he won a comfortable majority in the House, the obvious verdict from the polls was that support for his party was slipping. If the WP, SPP, NSP and maybe even the SDP had contested in Pasir Ris, the PAP vote share would have gone below 60%. And since that elections, the PAP has lost 2 by-elections rather handily to the WP. Now some will say, why get so excited about a vote drop and the loss of 7 seats when the party enjoys 3/5 of the popular vote and 90% of the House seats? Anywhere else in the world, ruling parties will give 'an arm and a leg' to have these kind of results. In most democracies, the winning party rarely polls over 55% of the vote.

Chiam See Tong's stunning win over Mah Bow Tan and J B Jeyaretnam retaining his Anson seat in the 1984 elections, sent the PAP into 'panic mode.'

But let's not forget this is the PAP we are talking about. If Singaporeans have a 'kiasu' (scared to lose) attitude, then the PAP has a 'kiasi' (scared to die) one. In 1984 when they lost just 2 seats in the House, they had a big 'pow-wow' between top brass and members. Their verdict? They would lose the next elections! And so the Group Representation Constituency and Town Council Schemes came about. This made it harder for the opposition to win, since they now had to field 3 strong candidates instead of just 1 and then also prove they had the ability to manage estates. These schemes and the upgrading carrot successfully beat back the challenge, even though the PAP suffered a minor-hiccup in 1991, losing 4 seats to the combined opposition. But there wasn't any real threat of losing power or having their vote share slip to dangerous levels.

A drop everywhere for the PAP in 2011, with some places seeing more than a 10% vote swing. In this chart of some GRCs, only AMK saw an increase but only because a 'lightweight and makeshift' Reform Party team contested there. Still they garnered 30% of the vote.

Fast forward to 2011 and up to now, one doesn't need to be rocket scientist to know that the PAP is going to lose more seats and see its vote share drop even further. The only question is how much? And after any election success or failure, only 1 person takes the credit or blame - the PM. The problem with the PAP unlike other ruling parties in democracies elsewhere, is that no one actually wants to or dares challenge the leader. The top man sets his goals and how long he plans to stay in power, and everyone down the line agrees. Sometimes it's good to rally behind a leader, to show unity and cohesion, but it can also be bad to continue to rally behind a leader who's losing public confidence or whose policies (which he ultimately answers for) are repeatedly being questioned, rejected and upsetting the electorate.

There can be no doubt that rising public housing, transport, utilities and a widening gap between the upper and middle class, is being met with a lot of scepticism by the public. Even the CPF scheme has come under focus, but most of all it's the influx of foreign workers that is alienating more and more voters from the PAP. The question for the PM is at which stage does he want to relinquish power?

30 years ago, he entered politics as the 'Young Turk' with jet black hair. 30 years later, his hair has turned grey and he's looking worn out. How much longer does he want to go on?

The original plan by the PAP was for a new leader to lead the party into the next decade, meaning the PM might hang on to until say 2018 before retiring, or maybe he might still lead the party in the 2020 (2021) elections and handover after that. The question now is whether if he waits until then, will he be handing in a much weaker state or even as an opposition leader (2021)?

After a poor showing in his 2nd elections as PM, Abdullah Badawi became a 'lame duck' PM and had to bring forward his retirement in order to let his party regroup under a new leader.

Does he want to go down in history as the PM with the lowest vote share ever or as the 1st PAP PM to lose power? If he retires now, by resigning his office, he can let a different man tackle the issues and have around 2 years to produce results. Because it's very hard for him to suddenly do a U-turn now on the very policies he introduced in his term. It'll show him as weak or having made a number of mistakes that would tell voters, if we carry on with him, he might again make them. If he sticks to guns and leads the party into the 2016 polls, he's almost certainly to be facing some sort of voter backlash that could leave him very much as a 'lame duck' PM. He only needs to look at Abdullah Badawi in Malaysia for an example. 'Pak Lah' took over from another long serving PM, and like Lee, enjoyed an overwhelming victory in his first elections. But he took a severe pasting in the next and everyone knew it was a rejection of him, as much as a rejection of his party.

After 11 years in power, Tony Blair knew his time was up and with calls within his party for a change, he quit politics and went on to become an international envoy. Thus he averted the disasters that befell his successor Gordon Brown, and is still held in high regard.

If the PM chooses to ignore this and still goes into the 2016 polls, he'll come out of it worse off and will bear the brunt of the blame for the poor showing and whatever loss of seats. It'll be this lasting image of him that people will remember when he has to make way in say, 2018. His successor will undoubtedly have to distance himself from him and try to undo the damage caused. 10 years is really a long time as PM and he had a further 20 as a Cabinet Minister. If he leaves now, his legacy will not be so bad. There would have been high points and some low ones, but not seen in a totally negative aspect in history (opposition die-hards will disagree, but neutrals might be willing to concede). At 62, he's still relatively young and he can still represent Singapore globally. He could try for some positions in the UN, Commonwealth, ASEAN or go on the lecture circuit. He can remain an advisor to his party, but he should not remain in Cabinet as the former PMs did. He should let his successor have a free reign and only serve as an elder statesman.

As this cost of living 'word cloud' suggests, the PM is the 1 man people will associate their problems with. And he's almost certainly gonna get the brunt of the blame come GE 2016.

He had his crack at leadership and served in the country's highest executive office, in itself a distinct honour. Leave now and history might not give a totally bad verdict on his legacy. Anyway for sure his successor and the MSM won't allow that to happen. Stay on and take a further beating in 2016 and then stumble through his final 2 years as PM, everyone in his party will be secretly wishing for him to go and no amount of rosy picture painting by the MSM, can fully hide that fact.

Despite being in charge of fiscal policy as Finance Minister, DPM Tharman attracts less blame for the widening income gap and rising costs than his boss. And he's still regarded as one of the brightest Ministers in the Cabinet. Handing over power to him for a short spell might arrest the PAP's slide, if he's able to convince voters to give him a chance.