Singapore's ruling party seen preparing for new elections

SINGAPORE (AFP) -- Singapore's ruling party has begun interviewing potential candidates, indicating an election to give new Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong his own mandate may be looming, a report said Wednesday.

The Straits Times newspaper said potential candidates, including top lawyers and doctors, had been invited for "tea sessions" with cabinet ministers in recent months.

Lee, 52, took over last week from Goh Chok Tong, 63, who stepped down after 14 years but remains in the cabinet as senior minister.

Prominent people already known to the ministers had been invited for one-on-one lunches with cabinet members, who ask them if they are willing to enter politics, the report said.

Giving a glimpse of the recruitment process for the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), which has dominated Singapore politics since the island gained self-rule from Britain in 1959, the report said those short-listed would go for more rigorous interviews.

Questions thrown at these interviews by senior party members can be "intensely personal" or "invigoratingly intellectual," the report added.

Analysts said the interviews mean a general election could be coming soon to provide a popular mandate to Lee, son of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, 80, who is now an adviser to the cabinet.

"Elections are not very far away because the interviews for potential MPs (members of parliament) have already started," Bilveer Singh, a political science professor at the National University of Singapore, said.

"Elections are part of the political culture. The new man will want to have a mandate for himself," he told AFP last week.

Goh called for general elections nine months after taking over from Lee Kuan Yew in 1990.

The Straits Times report quoted veteran and former MPs as saying the PAP had been asking for "more names", especially potential women candidates. Many of those who were invited for the sessions are in their 30s.

Prime Minister Lee in his inaugural speech emphasized Singapore's next generation of leaders must be drawn from those born after Singapore's statehood in 1965, meaning those aged 39 or younger.

Many of the invitees are lawyers and doctors.

"And these are not your usual run-of-the-mill lawyers and doctors. They're all high-fliers in big firms and heads of hospitals or departments," one potential candidate told the newspaper.

Engineers, bankers, economists, journalists, entrepreneurs and professionals into volunteer work are also on the list.

The PAP has always drawn heavily from the private sector for fresh blood. Goh was a top executive of shipping giant Neptune Orient Lines when he was asked to run for politics in 1976.