Politics: Larry and the five wise men
Fresh off the stonking victory by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) at the 2025 general election (GE), Lawrence Wong, prime minister, has, as expected, reshuffled his cabinet. But how significant are the changes? And what do they tell us about the manner in which Wong will govern?
Our assessment is that Wong has shown himself to be a meticulous tinkerer, rather than a reformer, who’s rewarded electoral performance, while distributing power so as to foster teamwork between strong-headed individuals and ministries. He’s also cannily left himself latitude to test out new cabinet members before confirming them.
Perhaps most intriguingly, we also see the emergence of Wong the electoral strategist. His picks suggest that he’s already plotting an eastern defence, to try and neuter the inevitable ambition of the Workers’ Party (WP) at the next GE. Finally, the main disappointment is the paucity of women and ethnic minorities at the top.
Read on at “Larry and the five wise men: Singapore’s new cabinet”, Jom’s commentary this week.
Politics: The best losers
In 1981, JB Jeyaretnam of the WP won a by-election in Anson, breaking the 14-year parliamentary stranglehold of the PAP. This instigated a slew of political manoeuvres from Lee Kuan Yew, including the crackdown against alleged Marxists in 1987 (see below) and the introduction of the GRC system in 1988. But before all that, he introduced the non-constituency member of Parliament (NCMP) scheme ahead of GE1984, guaranteeing at least three opposition MPs in Parliament (the best losers). It was criticised across the political spectrum, both for its undemocratic nature and for presumably dampening the pressure to vote opposition. At GE1984, Jeyaretnam held onto his seat and Chiam See Tong of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) won another in Potong Pasir. That left one NCMP seat. Two opposition politicians declined, leaving it unfilled.
Fast forward four frenetic decades. As the opposition has slowly gained ground, the NCMP allotment has risen to 12. It’s no longer roundly poo-poohed but, given the greater exposure through parliamentary livestreams, seen as a vital testbed for new candidates. Leong Mun Wai and Hazel Poa of the Progress Singapore Party acquitted themselves admirably in the last few years, and the SDP’s Chee Soon Juan would have grabbed it had he been given the chance. Instead, he was narrowly pipped to it at GE2025 by the WP’s slate in Jalan Kayu SMC and Tampines GRC.
This week we found out that the WP’s Andre Low and Eileen Chong, from those respective districts, will take up the seats. Why them? Why not, say, Michael Thng? The party’s been mum about its selection process, though presumably Low had first dibs as the best loser, and the Tampines team had a frank conversation about who’d be best placed to contribute most. Remember, this is a poorly remunerated position (S$2,063 vs S$13,750 per month for a regular MP), and involves a sacrifice of some 30 days a year just for parliamentary sittings. Soon-to-be-father Low’s family, amongst others, deserves our gratitude. Whatever the rationale, it’s great that the Tampines GRC team chose its only woman—and a former foreign service officer and current philanthropic worker to boot. Just a month after “Mama Bear” Sylvia Lim spoke about the progress she’s seen in political gender equity over the past two decades, this was another step in the right direction.
Some further reading: In “Seeing is believing: why Singapore will benefit from having more female politicians”, we examine the evolution of female political representation and argue that there’s a long way to go.
