Singapore’s Lee dynasty spat gets ugly
Print Edition
THE brother of Singapore’s prime minister yesterday accused him of lying in parliament about the final wishes of their father, revered founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, the latest installment of an explosive family feud.
Lee Hsien Yang accused Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 65, of falsely telling parliament Monday that their late father had been open to reconsidering plans to demolish a century-old family bungalow.
The unprecedented row has shocked a nation unused to divisions among the elite. During a second day of debates in the legislature, the premier said the dispute was “not a soap opera” and called on Singaporeans not to be distracted by it.
The house is at the center of a political drama that has simmered since the 2015 death of the elder Lee, and which has played out in public, with the premier and his siblings exchanging barbs on social media.
The patriarch had wanted the bungalow destroyed after he passed away to prevent the creation of a personality cult.
But the prime minister’s siblings say their brother is attempting to block the house’s demolition to capitalize on their father’s legacy for his own political agenda, including grooming his own son as a future leader.
“(Lee Hsien Loong) has made convoluted, but ultimately false, claims about Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes,” Hsien Yang, a former brigadier general in the armed forces who now heads the city-state’s civil aviation authority, said in a Facebook post yesterday, which was shared by his sister Wei Ling, 62, a top neurologist.
The dispute burst into the open last month when the PM’s brother and sister launched attacks on Facebook, which quickly went viral.
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