SINGAPORE: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he was ready to step down in a couple of years time and his successor is likely already in the cabinet but a clear choice has yet to emerge
In an interview with CNBC released on Friday, Lee, 65, the son of Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew, said a new election could be called any time before 2021, when the current five-year parliamentary term ends.
“I am ready,” said Lee, when asked if he was prepared to step down in the next couple of years. But he said he needed to make sure there was a successor ready to take over, adding: “there are people in the wings. The question is, who it will be and that will need to be decided.”
“I think it’s very likely that he would be in the cabinet already but which one, well that would take a while to, to account,” Lee said when asked he was close to finding a successor.
Lee was speaking ahead of a visit to the US starting Sunday — including a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House.
Local media and analysts say Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat and Chan Chun Sing, a former army chief and a minister in the prime minister’s office, are among potential successors.
Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam could be a candidate, although he has repeatedly said he does not want the job and he would be a surprise choice because he is a member of the minority ethnic Indian community. Singapore’s leader since independence has always been a member of the majority Chinese community.
Questions about succession in the wealthy Southeast Asian city state — which has been governed by the People’s Action Party since independence in 1965 — came into focus when Lee, who has twice survived cancer, took ill during a televised speech last year and stumbled at a podium.
Doctors subsequently said there were no serious concerns.
Lee Kuan Yew’s successor, Goh Chok Tong, was identified at least five years in advance while the current leader, who first entered politics in 1984, was also groomed for the position long before he took office in 2004.
Prime Minister Lee said he was saddened by a feud with his siblings which played out in the public earlier this year over the fate of Lee Kuan Yew’s family home.
“The matter is in abeyance. I’m not sure if it’s solved,” Lee said in the CNBC interview, adding he and his siblings had not recently communicated.
Lee Hsien Yang and sister Lee Wei Ling accused their elder brother of abusing state power to try to save the house as a historic monument in defiance of his father’s wishes.
The prime minister called for an extraordinary special sitting of parliament in July and subsequently said that debate failed to find any substantiated evidence of abuse of power. He has said the government must decide what to do with the property.
“Perhaps one day when emotions have subsided, some movement will be possible. These things take time,” Lee said.
Singapore PM Lee says ready to step down in couple of years; no successor picked yet
Singapore PM Lee says ready to step down in couple of years; no successor picked yet
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
