Word: goh
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...eldest son of the country's founding patriarch, Lee Kuan Yew, had plenty of reasons to be happy. After 14 years as heir apparent, he was finally assuming a job for which in many ways he had been preparing all his life. His predecessor, Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister since 1990, has handed Lee a remarkable legacy. A few days earlier, the government announced that GDP growth for the first half of the year was a booming 10%?a signal that Singapore is finally shaking off a malaise sparked by the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and extended by last...
...other reasons to display his kinder, gentler side. Even Lee's predecessor Goh has said "Singaporeans would like Loong to be more approachable," noting that Lee's "public persona is that of a no-nonsense, uncompromising and tough minister," and adding that such attributes make some fellow citizens "uncomfortable." Those citizens, these days, need to be humored. For Singapore is changing. The nation has been able to build a prosperous society on the back of a deserved reputation as a safe haven for foreign investment and for a clean, effective system of public administration?not always qualities found in abundance...
...first speech as Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong was eager to show that he's well aware of those aspirations. Under his stewardship, he said, the drive for openness started by Goh would grow. In this new Singapore there would be room for "robust debate," more space for Singaporeans to express "diverse views" and "be different...
...Singaporeans would dispute that Lee has all the qualifications to be Prime Minister, says commentator Colin Goh, one of the founders of the satirical website Talkingcock.com: Cambridge- and Harvard-educated, Lee speaks four languages fluently, was the youngest brigadier general in the army's history, and has spent 20 years in top government posts. Indeed, a poll by the pro-government Straits Times a few days before he took office purported to show that 83% of respondents believed Lee was the right man for the job. But it is a reflection of a continuing ambivalence about him that...
...activist and former nominated opposition Member of Parliament Sinapan Samydorai is unconvinced. "They've been trying now for years to get us to believe in his kinder and gentle side, but it's all just spin." "We still don't know who Lee Hsien Loong really is," says commentator Goh, whose website regularly lampoons Lee's makeover attempts. "He's so opaque that we tend to project onto him our fears for the future, of reverting back to the bad old days." Those "bad old days" were, of course, the first 25 years of Singapore's history when...