As sure as night follows day, Lee Hsien Loong was officially ratified as Singapore’s next prime minister over the weekend. He is expected to assume control of the island-state in either late July or August. There was never much doubt the younger Lee would eventually follow in the footsteps of his father, Lee Kuan Yew, as leader of Singapore. His young age and a cancer scare slowed his rise to the top but the path of succession was as ordained as if he’d been the first-born son of a royal family. The question that remains is whether creating such a political dynasty will ultimately harm Singapore’s development as a country.

The elder Lee obviously doesn’t think so and continues to deny his son was groomed for the job, saying among other things that there is only a small pool of talent in Singapore from which to choose its leaders.

“The point is he’s not taking over as my son, and I am not the one choosing or appointing him,” Lee recently told the Sunday Times. “He’s been deputy PM for 13 years, time enough for everyone to get the measure of him. If he’s not proved himself, then he should not be PM...I could have arranged to pass the baton directly to him instead of Goh Chok Tong. But then I’d have done Singaporeans a disservice, I would do him harm and blot my copybook.

“My colleagues and I have institutionalised honesty, integrity and meritocracy into the systems we have created.”

Perhaps he could have also added they have institutionalised the kind of nanny rule that made opposition to the rise of the younger Lee an impossibility.

There is no question the Lee Hsien Loong is an intelligent, capable and experienced bureaucrat. After graduating from England’s prestigious Cambridge University with first-class honours in mathematics he quickly rose through the ranks of Singapore’s army and ended his military career as a brigadier-general in 1984 at the age of just 32. In what political analysts have described as a “meteoric” rise through Singapore’s political system, Lee was appointed deputy prime minister to serve under Goh in 1990 at the age of 38. He has since held most senior economic posts on his way up the government hierarchy.

The government has through various public relations efforts tried to soften the younger Lee’s stern image but it is hard to escape the perception that he is a hard chip off the old authoritarian block.

In a speech in January seen as giving an outline of his plans for Singapore, Lee echoed his father while warning political opponents of their fate if they became too vocal. “They are fully entitled to (criticise), but the government has to rebut or even demolish them,” he said.

It is precisely this kind of thinking that makes Lee’s elevation worrying because he is so much like his father. Such uncompromising leadership was perhaps needed to transform Singapore from a malarial swamp to the most modern city in Southeast Asia, especially at a time of political volatility. But if Singapore is to prosper in the future it will need to allow more input from more voices in society, not a population that from pre-school awaits direction on every aspect of their lives – from how many children they can have to how they should save their money – from a father-knows-best government; it will need a strong parliamentary opposition to question and scrutinise policy.

Ultimately, it will need a people who are weaned off the idea that they need the Lee family.

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