The same front-runners often crop up in public discussions but sadly – at least from the public’s point of view – no one seems to readily fit the bill.

In a surprise announcement in Parliament last year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 55, said his government would begin searching for some one to take over – barely three years of his taking office in 2004.

He said he should be able to come up with a name by the next election in 2011 for his successor to take over five years from then.

Lee was explaining how crucial the unpopular high ministers’ salaries were to his recruitment of capable leaders.

His sudden reference to a successor, Lee – who recovered from cancer in 1993 – gave the impression that he was preparing his exit in about 10 years’ time.

Recently, the PM went further on the theme but downplayed political renewal as a continuous exercise and blurred any timeframe for stepping down.

He said a team to be assembled in the next five to 10 years would choose the next PM, signifying that neither he nor his father Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew would individually make the choice.

“That’s how the next PM would have to be chosen, not by me but by the team which I hope we would have assembled in the next five to ten years,” he said.

“We have already got part of the team. We brought in some in the last election. But the job is never done and we are hunting hard right now.”

Hsien Loong has made it clear that he does not intend to follow the path of his father Kuan Yew to hang on to power for long. He said he did not think it wise for a PM to stay on in the job until the age of 70.

People have started speculating who his successor could be but are finding it hard to come up with a clear-cut name.

The front-runners are experienced but old or too young or without the tough qualities of  leadership and yet not unacceptable to the voters.

Lee Senior has said the fourth generation leaders would have to be chosen before 2011 from those in the 30s and 40s.

To some political observers this lack of ready leaders who are considered suitable to lead a changed Singapore doesn’t augur well for the future.

This could indicate that – despite the mega-high salaries – it has failed to come up with top leadership material.

Or it could mean a tougher criterion to select someone capable of leading – and bonding with – a sophisticated but divided lot of Singaporeans.

The present prime minister, for example, is faced with a whole new host of complex issues that his father did not have to deal with.

This has led many Singaporeans to feel that today’s ministers are below par compared with the first generation leaders like the visionary Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee and Sinnathamby Rajaratnam. Recently, Hsien Loong dismissed this, saying: “Today’s Cabinet is as good as it can get. It

is not inferior and in some ways has higher standards than the first Cabinet. What it lacks is ‘combat experience.’”

Yet it is not only the public that is unsure of the next man, but Hsien Loong himself has said he is uncertain which of the newly chosen political leaders can make it.

He said in January that it would take another two or three years to find out.

Contributing to a perception of decline is the increasingly active role played by Minister Mentor Lee, 84, in the past two years on many issues.

Since he stepped down as prime minister, he has largely kept his promise to stay out of the limelight on day-to-day affairs, although he retains a powerful influence from behind the curtain.

But this changed when the going got tougher for Singapore both at home and abroad and public disquiet increased over several policies.

Kuan Yew emerged to play a much higher profile, at times hardly a week passing without making a pronouncement or two to explain hard decisions to the people.

“This shows he is less than satisfied with the Cabinet performance or at least its ability to ‘sell’ policies to the public,” said one old-timer.

He has always had a higher standard of judging political successors than possibly any contemporary leaders East or West. It is hard to meet his criterion.

At any rate, in most countries, the deputy prime minister – the next in line – is a strong if not automatic choice. In Singapore, this may not be the case.

It has two DPMs – Wong Kan Seng and Prof Shunmugam Jeyakumar – but neither has the all-round political experience or public standing to be prime minister. At 61 and 68 years of age, respectively, both are older than Hsien Loong.

If the successor comes from party ranks, Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, who is the People’s Action Party’s second assistant secretary-general (ranking just behind PM Lee and Wong ) would be a front-runner.

At 53, he is two years younger than Hsien Loong.

The decision will become clear in the next three to four years but one thing is certain. One man will have a powerful say on who Singapore’s fourth prime minister should be: Kuan Yew.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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