Author: Michael D Barr, Flinders University

The sudden retirement of Lee Kuan Yew from the Singapore Cabinet last month following the ruling party’s poor showing in the general elections is a tremendous victory for his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Ironically, the younger Lee’s moral stature in Cabinet has been given a major boost by the ruling party’s dreadful showing in the May 2011 elections as he has been able to shift all the blame onto others — notably his two predecessors as prime minister (Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong) and a few poorly performing Cabinet ministers, who also stepped down after the election. Read more…