When Ho Ching posts on Facebook, Singapore pays attention. Is that a problem?

Ho is married to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and heads Temasek Holdings, lending her views the seeming heft of official positions

Social media discussions suggest Singaporeans are curious about her salary and role in the sovereign investment fund, given her prolific posting

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Ho Ching, who is married to Singapore’s prime minister, at the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00am, 25 Apr 2020Updated: 10:06pm, 25 Apr 2020

For many Singaporeans, the prime minister’s wife Ho Ching and her prolific Facebook persona are one and the same.

Once described as firmly publicity shy, Ho – the long-time head of Temasek Holdings, the island nation’s sovereign investment firm – has become one of the most closely watched personalities on social media in the city state.

A recent This Week in Asia examination of data compiled by social-media tracking platform CrowdTangle showed the scale of her presence on Facebook, where her public profile has more than 101,000 followers.

Ho posted 4,800 times per month on average over the past 12 months, which easily makes her one of Singapore’s most avid social-media users. She has long maintained her habit of copiously posting on the platform, averaging 1,830 monthly posts over the past five years.

Most of her posts are links to articles, but some are personal musings or comments about current events. With some of those reflections causing controversy in recent days, the Facebook presence of “Madam”, as she is known, has come into sharp focus.

One issue being debated is whether it is appropriate for Ho to be posting so much on Facebook – often weighing in on government policies – as her stature and marriage to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mean that even privately held views could be seen as official positions.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong with his wife Ho Ching after attending the inauguration of Indonesia's President Joko Widodo in 2019. Photo: Reuters

With the government currently in a full-court press dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, there are concerns that social-media controversies sparked by Ho are proving a distraction for her husband’s administration.

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