SINGAPORE (Sept 28): Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong replaced his finance minister in a cabinet reshuffle after a landslide election win earlier this month, tapping some younger faces as he prepares his party for a leadership transition.

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam will step down as finance minister, according to a statement on Monday from the Prime Minister’s Office. Former central bank managing director Heng Swee Keat, who held the education portfolio, becomes finance minister.

The lineup includes fresh entrants such as former defense force chief Ng Chee Meng, who becomes joint acting education minister alongside Ong Ye Kung, who is director of group strategy at Keppel Corp.

The premier, 63, has said he doesn’t want to stay in power beyond 70, and is looking to groom leaders to extend more than five decades of rule of Southeast Asia’s wealthiest nation by his People’s Action Party. The PAP won almost 70 percent of the September vote to maintain its absolute majority in the legislature.

“They will be stretched and tested,” Lee told reporters on Monday at a briefing, speaking of the new cabinet. Half the full or acting ministers are below 55 years of age, and nearly half were elected in the last three general elections, he said.

‘Next team’

“A major goal of my new cabinet is to prepare the next team to take over from me and my senior colleagues,” Lee said. “It’s an urgent task, we don’t have the luxury of time,” he said. “It’s most likely that the future successor is in this cabinet.”

Tharman takes on a newly-crafted role as coordinating minister for economic and social policies in the changes that take effect Oct. 1.

Khaw Boon Wan, formerly national development minister, will take over as transport minister from Lui Tuck Yew, who oversaw an expansion of the public-transportation network and dealt with increased train breakdowns in recent years. Lui resigned after Singaporeans vented on social media about two major disruptions on train lines, passing up on the premier’s offer to stay in the cabinet if he was re-elected.

Lee’s party improved on its election performance of 2011 even as nine opposition parties fielded candidates in a vote where every seat was contested for the first time. The government wooed voters with policies including raising spending on lower-income households and the elderly, and by limiting work passes for foreigners. Challenges remain as the government deals with an aging workforce and slowing economic growth.

Lee last announced changes to his cabinet in April. Of the latest lineup, which he called a “transition team,” Lee expects more cabinet shifts in the middle of the current term.