Singapore’s Premier Says He Will Retire at End of 1990

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who turned a colonial backwater into a modern industrial giant, announced Sunday that he will step down from the post he has held for 30 years before the end of 1990.

In his New Year’s message, the 66-year-old Lee said First Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong will be his successor, ending speculation that he would immediately pass the post on to his son, Trade and Industry Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Lee, the country’s first and only prime minister, has made it clear he is not retiring but has said in the past that he will become a senior Cabinet minister.

Western observers expect he will retain veto power on all critical decisions and leave the day-to-day running of the country up to his handpicked second generation of leaders, including his 37-year-old son.

Although Goh, 48, has said he expects Lee Hsien Loong to eventually follow him in the No. 1 job, he ruled out any interim label for himself by making it clear he expects to run for prime minister in the next election in 1993.

Lee Kuan Yew, who has been in control from the time Singapore achieved self-rule in 1959 and full independence from Britain in 1965, said the country of 2.6 million residents “enters the 1990s with its people and leaders confident that they have pulled together when the going got rough, and can do so again.”

“For Asia and the Pacific, a sound relationship between America and Japan is crucial to stability and growth,” Lee said. He noted this “may be more difficult in the future without a common threat from the Soviet Bloc,” which has been swept by democratic reforms.

He exhorted his countrymen to “let the 1990s be the decade when Singapore comes of age as a developed country.”

“It has been a decade of self-renewal,” Lee said of the 1980s. “A new generation has assumed leadership positions in the Cabinet, Parliament and the public service.

“Before the end of 1990, Goh Chok Tong will take over as prime minister,” Lee said, in his most explicit statement yet about relinquishing the prime ministry.

Skeptics, however, recalled that five years ago, Lee indicated he would retire at 65.