Rachael Chang: Kee Chiu & Wong helming only half-ministries, unlike Overtime Tan

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Yesterday, PM Lee announced that Mr Tan Chuan Jin would relinquish his second portfolio as Senior Minister of State for National Development, to focus on the Manpower Ministry.

In an interview with reporters in China, Mr Lee said he had previously been asked to take on too much.

Some have taken it as a demotion of sorts, or even as a public insult to Mr Tan's abilities. But that is unfair. Both Mr Chan and Mr Wong are effectively helming half a ministry each - the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports was split last year - while the Manpower portfolio that Mr Tan is grappling with is at the centre of Singapore's economic restructuring.

Instead, what this reveals is the downside of a compressed political timeline. A baptism of fire will burn even men of the highest calibre, and all of the fourth-generation leadership will likely have already felt some form of this, public or not.

But it can also reveal their mettle. In a way, an intense, accelerated ascension befits a prime minister who will have to deal with a vastly more competitive political landscape than his predecessors did. Governance will be complex and unpredictable at every turn.

But it will also be replete with opportunities for a leader with a maverick vision for a country in transition, and the steely persuasion required to take the people along. The kind of leader who, when he is thrown in at the deep end, surfaces, swims and wins.
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