US-trained economist and a guitar player: Meet Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s new PM

Here is a look at who Wong is and what sort of issues he would have to deal with during his tenure.

Who is Lawrence Wong?

Born on December 18, 1972, Wong comes from a family that he describes as ordinary. His father had a sales job and his mother was a primary school teacher. He grew up in public housing and, unlike many politicians in Singapore, did not go to an elite school.

Wong studied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has said he went to the US as it was home to his favourite musicians. He earned his masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.

After holding some of the most important positions in Singapore’s bureaucracy, Wong entered politics in 2011. He contested as a candidate of the People’s Action Party (PAP) — it was co-founded by Lee’s father, Lee Kuan Yew, and has ruled the city-state for more than six decades — and won. Wong was then appointed to the board of directors of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the central bank. Subsequently, he held the culture, national development, and education portfolios.

Wong shot to fame during the pandemic for “unflappable demeanour when explaining tough pandemic restrictions to Singaporeans,” according to a report by Reuters. In 2021, he became the finance minister and a year later, was appointed deputy prime minister and successor to Lee. He has been serving as chairman of the central bank board since 2023.

Wong loves to play guitar and his social media handle is full of videos of him strumming the instrument, including one of Taylor Swift’s Love Story.

What challenges does Wong face?

During his tenure, Lee, the outgoing PM, transformed Singapore from a backwater swamp to an international financial powerhouse and top tourist destination. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has doubled in the past two decades, becoming higher than the GDP per capita of the US.

In recent years, however, a new set of challenges has emerged for the country. There is discontent among Singaporeans over the high living costs — Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in the world. There is no minimum wage in the country, housing costs have skyrocketed, and many citizens complain that social mobility has considerably reduced, according to a report by The New York Times.

Immigration has also become a bone of contention — around 40% of Singapore’s nearly six million people are not citizens. Lee’s government was “completely unprepared to accommodate the high immigration they deemed necessary for their push to become a global city,” Political commentator Sudhir Vadaketh, who runs a Singapore-based independent news magazine, told the BBC. This led to “a very bad form of racism and bigotry” that persists to this day, he added.

Another issue is the rising backlash against the tightly controlled freedom of expression. Although Lee was far more flexible than his father — the outgoing PM repealed a controversial anti-gay sex law — criticism of the government and discussions on religion and race are still restricted.

Wong would also have to find a way to maintain Singapore’s delicate balancing act between China and the US, especially as tensions between the latter two countries have been soaring. While China is the city-state’s largest trading partner, the US accounts for more than 20% of all foreign direct investment in Singapore, according to a report by the Guardian. Singapore also has military ties with the US.

Wong’s party, PAP, has been losing political ground. In the 2020 election, the party’s vote share dipped to a near-record low of 61%, and the opposition won a record 10 seats in Parliament, out of 93 that went to polls.

Given the mounting challenges and the next elections likely to take place before November 2025, the new PM has his work out.

(With inputs from Reuters)