GE2020: What led Lee Hsien Yang to join PSP?

By Lauren Ong and Christalle Tay

SINGAPORE – There was some theatre on Wednesday morning (24 June) at the Tiong Bahru Market food centre. With a flourish, opposition politician and ex-PAP MP Dr Tan Cheng Bock announced that he was giving a Progress Singapore Party (PSP) membership card to the Prime Minister’s estranged younger brother Lee Hsien Yang. Never mind that Lee had already joined the party some time ago, Dr Tan said there hadn’t been an opportunity to hand him the PSP card.

The coffeeshop site was pregnant with significance. It is in Tanjong Pagar GRC, the long-time stronghold of the patriarch of the family, the late Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March 2015. It is also one of the nine constituencies which the PSP aims to contest in the General Election (GE). Lee, however, said he was there to enjoy the wanton mee.

There has never been so much drama over the entry of a person into a political party. Even high flyers who join the People’s Action Party (PAP) aren’t afforded the kind of ceremony, and the consequent wagging of tongues about how GE will shape up with a Lee versus Lee contest. In fact, it wasn’t even confirmed that morning if Lee would be fielded as a candidate. Both Lee and Dr Tan chose to give enigmatic replies, indicating the likelihood of an Act 2.

Lee: "When I'm ready to disclose that, you will find out."

Dr Tan: "I'm not confirming... Don't worry. In politics, we know when to make our move. Timing is important."

Like his two siblings, Lee, 62, was awarded the President’s Scholarship and on top of that, the Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship by the Public Service Commission to study engineering and science. He later went on to graduate from Stanford University with a Master of Science in management.

Lee had served in various staff positions in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) moving up to the rank of Brigadier-General, like his older brother. He left to join Singtel in 1994, where he moved up to become its chief executive officer in 1995. He left SingTel in 2007, holding several management positions and directorships at a number of private and public firms.

It is no surprise that if Lee should enter politics, he would have chosen PSP. He has known Dr Tan, a former PAP MP of 26 years, for many years. The PSP also said it would be championing the values that it said the PAP had departed from over the years. Dr Tan mentioned the late Lee Kuan Yew’s attributes often, lamenting for example that “the process of good governance have gone astray… Specifically there is an erosion of transparency, independence and accountability”.

Dr Tan said on Wednesday morning, "His father is the founder of Singapore, you know, so that's very important. And the fact he has decided to join us is a clear indication that the current (Government) didn't follow what his dad wanted."

Speculation over whether Lee would join an opposition party had begun almost as soon as his dispute with his sibling came to light over the future of the family home in Oxley Road. Here’s how it all unfolded over the years:

June 2017: Lee and his sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling, 65, a neurologist and former director of the National Neuroscience Institute, made public their feelings for their brother, accusing him of abusing his office and going against the wishes of their father.

July 2017: PM Lee made public his affidavit about the circumstances of their father’s last will and put forth his position in Parliament. He declined to sue his siblings for defamation, citing his views on maintaining family ties and how they should not be vented in public.

Since the dispute broke out, Lee had been spending time in self-imposed exile, amid concerns about the monitoring of his phone calls and messages, he told Reuters in an interview. He left for Hong Kong in the later half of 2017.

But while the younger Lee siblings were not involved in any legal proceedings over the Oxley Road saga, two family members were less fortunate.

August 2017: The Attorney-General Chambers’ (AGC) started proceedings against Lee’s son, Li Sheng Wu, for contempt of court over a private Facebook post he made on 15 July 2017. He had written that the “Singapore government is very litigious and has a pliant court system”.

The three-year legal battle is still ongoing, though Li announced in January he would no longer take part in the court proceedings, which lawyers say is to his own detriment.

November 2018: Lee was seen having breakfast with Dr Tan even before and after the PSP was formed at the end of 2018. Lee in July 2019 described Dr Tan as “the leader that Singapore deserves’’.

December 2018, May 2019: Lee made high-profile donations to blogger Leong Sze Hian in 2018, who was facing a defamation suit by PM Lee, and activist Jolovan Wham in 2019 for his appeal against a contempt of court charge.

July 2019: Dr Tan weighed in on the Lee Family saga in a PSP press conference. He said that the PM putting himself up for questioning in Parliament without the siblings there was hardly an exercise in transparency.

He was also asked if Lee would be among the PSP candidates. Dr Tan said that Lee was not a member and that if he wanted to join the ranks, he would have to make clear that it was not for “his own political agenda”, but because he agreed with the party’s values and positions.

“If his philosophy is the same as mine, and he does not allow his personal agenda to come into my PSP, I’d be prepared to take him,” he said.

September 2019: PM Lee sued the editor of The Online Citizen (TOC) for an article alleging that he had misled his father about the future of the Oxley Road property and suggested that PM Lee’s intention to demolish the house was futile. The article had also referred to his sister’s post, in which she set out a purported sequence of events related to the property.

The PM’s press secretary Chang Li Lin said the PM’s restraint in not suing his siblings should not be “misinterpreted by others as free licence to repeat and spread false and defamatory allegations against him, as the article and post have done”.

February 2020: A disciplinary tribunal found lawyer and Lee’s wife, Lee Suet Fern, guilty of improper professional conduct in her handling of the late Lee Kuan Yew’s last will.

It found that with her husband, Suet Fern made the late prime minister sign his seventh will that she had drafted “urgently” without the presence or involvement of his long-time lawyer Kwa Kim Li, who prepared his first to sixth wills. The final will had removed the clause on the demolition of the late prime minister’s house at 38 Oxley Road, which was included in his previous wills.

Her case was referred to the Court of Three Judges, the highest disciplinary body that deals with misconduct among lawyers. Suet Fern could face a fine, suspension or be disbarred if found guilty. The earliest the case could be heard is in August.

Whatever role Lee plays in this election, you can bet that the PAP leaders are watching from the sidelines.

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