Two powerful elderly men in Singapore, with a combined age of 142, are tossing bucketfuls of shade at each other on Facebook.

It started with our grandmaster of shade, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong:

This, as you might know (if you are boliao enough), triggered a really uncharacteristic response from the group of 16 young political leaders, urging us all to have patience as they choose who should lead them "in good time":

Somehow sensing the need to perhaps protect his young protégés, PM Lee spoke out about this — even though it was off-topic — in his interview wrapping up his diplomatic ASEAN trip to India.

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We reckon it's because he needed to retake control of the leadership succession narrative a bit, quite possibly.

And here's where he threw in the following sly riposte:

"Well, ESM is speaking with the privilege of watching things rather than being responsible to make it happen. I think we know it is a very serious matter, it’s a pressing issue, as the younger ministers have already said in their statement. They know my timetable. After the next election, earlier rather than later, I would like to hand over to a successor." (emphasis ours)

But this set ESM Goh on a roll, and it was too late to stop his boulder.

"Watching things"

He started off innocuously enough, with a post that was about something entirely different —

But on Monday, he racked it up about 9000 notches with this poignantly-poetic sounding post:

Seriously.

And it was evidently too much for PM Lee, too, who quite plainly gave up:

"Touché! :) "

We think it's clear who has won.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's remind ourselves of a few facts of life:

1. These two men have a combined age of 142 (Goh is 76, and Lee turns 66 this Saturday).
2. One is (more or less) retired, and one is a year away from retirement age.
3. The topic we're supposed to be talking about here is that of leadership succession — who our next Prime Minister will be.

The end.

Photos via PM Lee and MParader's Facebook pages