Lee Kuan Yew, my father, was the visionary founder of Singapore. He led the country as prime minister for its first 31 years, establishing a governance model often described as a benevolent autocracy.
Under his leadership, the People’s Action Party dominated politics and curtailed certain freedoms, but it also prioritized shared prosperity, clean governance, and quality public services such as affordable housing. This approach transformed Singapore into a beacon of stability, wealth, and efficiency.
However, that shine is starting to fade.
The ruling party, which has maintained uninterrupted control since 1959, no longer appears to fulfill its duties to its citizens. It has grown increasingly authoritarian, enacting restrictive laws in recent years. While Singapore remains an autocracy, it no longer embodies the benevolence my father once envisioned.
These issues weigh heavily on many Singaporeans as they prepare to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections. There is a growing perception that the country chiefly serves the interests of the wealthy, the ruling elite, and their associates.
Though I deeply respected my father and sought to see his intentions in a positive light, I have come to understand that benevolent autocracy is an illusion. Singaporeans deserve transparent, accountable governance, genuine multiparty democracy with a credible opposition, and an end to one-party dominance.
My own family conflict illuminated this reality.
Throughout his career and retirement, my father lived modestly in our ancestral home, focused on Singapore’s welfare rather than personal gain. He expressed a clear wish for the house to be demolished after his passing.
My sister and I intended to honor that wish, but this brought us into conflict with our elder brother, Lee Hsien Loong, who served as prime minister for two decades until last year and remains influential. The house, symbolically significant to him and the ruling party, remains standing against my father’s instructions.
What should have been a private family matter instead led to a campaign of legal retaliation against me, my wife, and my son. Facing the threat of arrest, I left Singapore in 2022 with my wife for the United Kingdom, where we have been granted asylum.
My father emerged from Singapore’s turbulent path to nationhood. He believed a strong hand was necessary following independence from Britain in 1963, the painful separation from Malaysia two years later, and the challenges of building a tiny, multiracial, resource-scarce city-state amid the Cold War.
He demanded high standards from officials, removing those who failed to meet them. He engaged with a broad range of Singaporeans and was willing to adapt as circumstances evolved.
That spirit appears lost today. The current ruling class seems disconnected, and Singapore’s reputation for efficient, corruption-free governance is at risk.
The government justifies high ministerial salaries—among the world’s highest—as a deterrent to corruption and a means to attract top talent. Although Singapore still ranks well on corruption perception indexes, these rankings lag behind recent realities. Numerous scandals involving ministers, ruling party members, and influential state-linked enterprises have emerged.
A 2023 ranking by a respected international publication placed Singapore fourth among countries most affected by crony capitalism, following Russia, the Czech Republic, and Malaysia. Evidence suggests that Singapore’s carefully curated clean image has attracted those seeking to launder money, evade sanctions, or avoid financial oversight—including wealthy Chinese nationals, Russian entities, and illicit traffickers from Myanmar.
For everyday citizens, the more pressing concern is the widening gap in wealth distribution. Singapore has become a playground for the ultra-wealthy and is consistently listed among the world’s most expensive cities. Once a source of national pride, affordable, quality public housing is now scarce, and many locals compete with foreigners for employment. Issues like public transport failures, flooding, and data breaches further erode confidence in government efficiency.
Simultaneously, the government has intensified authoritarian measures by enacting broad and repressive legislation. These laws are justified as necessary for national security, social harmony, or combating misinformation but effectively provide tools to suppress dissent. Similar to my father’s era, political opponents, civil society groups, and critics face intimidation through police probes, defamation suits, and other legal means. Notably, just before the elections, an opposition leader was found guilty of lying under oath in a parliamentary inquiry, a charge he disputes.
There is no realistic chance that the ruling party, led by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, will lose power in the upcoming vote. Holding 83 of 93 elected parliamentary seats, the party controls state institutions and the media. The elections are widely viewed as lacking fairness, with accusations of gerrymandering through last-minute boundary changes, an abbreviated nine-day campaign, and speech restrictions that disadvantage opposition groups.
In the 2020 elections, the ruling party received 61 percent of the popular vote—one of its weakest performances—and the opposition Worker’s Party won a record 10 seats. These results revealed a growing desire among Singaporeans for political change, a sentiment that has only strengthened since.
Singaporeans deserve transparent and accountable governance and greater influence over policies shaping their lives. A true democracy would also fortify the nation’s resilience amid a fracturing global landscape. Even my father foresaw a time when his party’s long reign would end.
While Singapore’s system thrived under my father’s leadership, it is now clear that its success depended heavily on his unique qualities. Political analyst Samuel Huntington once observed that my father’s honesty and efficiency were likely to “follow him to his grave.”
Regrettably, that prediction has come to pass.
