Lee Kuan Yew, who led the city-state Singapore from 1959 until 1990, has died at the age of 91.
Of his life, Lee once said: “Singapore is my concern till the end of my life. Why should I not want Singapore to continue to succeed? “I have no regrets. I have spent my life, so much of it, building up this country. There’s nothing more that I need to do.”
In a televised address to the country, Lee Hsien Loong, Lee’s son and the current prime minister announced that his father’s body would remain in Parliament House in order for the public to pay their respects.
Tributes have come in from various world leaders: US President Obama hailed Lee as “the father of modern Singapore” and “one of the great strategists of Asian affairs”. He also noted Lee’s contribution to the US policy of rebalancing to the Asia-pacific region during his trip to Singapore in 2009. British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “[Lee] was always a friend to Britain, if sometimes critical, and many British prime ministers benefited from his wise advice, including me.”
Notably in the Asia-Pacific region, Xi Jinping called the statesman ‘an old friend of the Chinese people’. Similar tones of condolence have come from Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Australia to name a few.
Under Lee’s authoritarian rule, Singapore was transformed from a squalid and unassuming British imperial port into one of the world’s wealthiest nations. How was the ex-leader able to do this? Often cited as key policies are his placing of societal harmony on the government agenda; the development of a highly organised bureaucracy and manpower; world class infrastructure; tight regulatory framework and commitment to clamping down on corruption; strong international ties, including close relations to both the US and China and ‘developing a clean and green city’. Whatever the source of its success, today Singapore has the second highest per capita GDP in Asia (after Japan) and a booming economy that was able to recover from the 2008 recession quicker than most.
It was against the backdrop of increased powers of self-government handed to Singapore by the British that Lee was able to help lead the People’s Action Party (PAP) to electoral victory and become the country’s first prime minister.
A low point for Lee during his tenure was Singapore’s exit from the Federation of Malaya in 1963, over various political disputes. Lee gave an emotional address in which he wept over the separation. Nevertheless, he continued to speak highly of Singaporean’s multiracial society of Chinese, Indians and Malays. He highlighted the fact that Singapore with a history of immigration, was a man-made union of different ethnicities under one nation: “This is not a country that belongs to any single community: it belongs to all of us.”
It was initially thought that high unemployment, lack of resources and lack of infrastructure would hinder Singapore’s development as a lone-standing city-state – at one point, over half its population lived as squatters. Yet in spite of its shaky beginnings, Lee’s governance was effective. Not only that – it was far-reaching. Under Lee, programmes teaching manners and courteousness were put in place. In 2000, National Kindness Week was launched. Lee’s government even went as far to create a matchmaking programme in the hope of boosting its birth rate and leading smart men and women to produce smart offspring.
Lee handed over the reins to Goh Chock Tongs in 1990, but remained a senior minister, and in 2004 took on the role of ‘minister mentor’ after his son came into power.
“We were called a Nanny State,” said Mr Lee in an interview with the BBC, “But the result is that we are today better behaved and we live in a more agreeable place than 30 years ago.” In the same interview, on the Singaporean ban on chewing gum Lee remarked that: “If you can’t think because you can’t chew, try a banana.” Lee believed that strict political control was necessary to maintain stability in the country, and held this view unrepentantly. He also suggested that democracy did not typically bring about good government to new developing countries and that an “honest, effective and efficient” government was of more value than the Western ideal. Notably Lee Kuan Yew’s model of rule – that is, the combination of authoritarianism and economic liberalisation – influenced the reform of China under Deng and his colleagues.
Yet his methods of governance were not without criticism. Political dissidence was ruthlessly suppressed, and even today Mr Lee’s PAP remains the most dominant party of the country. In parliament there are currently only six opposition representatives.
Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch commended Lee’s role in Singapore’s economic development whilst also denouncing the “significant cost for human rights, and today’s restricted freedom of expression, self-censorship and stunted multiparty democracy.”
Singapore faces important new challenges in this new era; a widening wealth gap, a low birth rate and, importantly, a young generation more insistent on having democratic freedoms. What does Lee’s legacy mean for them? Lee is indeed a giant of history, but this does not mean his influence and ideas will not or cannot be subjected to greater scrunity and debate. Is a repressive state still a feasible option?
In Singapore, small opposition parties do not have enough support to give momentum to any attempt to shift political power away from the PAP, which has familiarity and legacy (though not infallibility) on its side. In addition to this, the Singaporean government has made efforts to improve social security which could quell the sense of unrest amongst certain members of the population. Indeed, if the government does choose to continue on its authoritarian path, it will need to show its people that it remains as smart and efficient as it has been in the past. But even so, who can say this will be enough to win over young voters? It is possible that over the coming years individual freedom will be put on the agenda of the country’s electorate.
Lee’s philosophy surrounding the nature of good governance demonstrates just how wildly different political systems have the potential to be, despite the growing consensus today that liberal democracy is the state of being all countries ought to move towards.
Politics is always a dialogue and for Singapore, this is massively significant. The legacies (which are impressive, unpleasant or both depending on who you speak to) of Lee Kuan Yew’s governance shape the nation’s trajectory for now, but they have not necessarily set Singapore’s future in stone.
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