This bungalow was built for a Dutch merchant during the colonial period, but has become part of the culture of modern Singapore. It is where Lee Kuan Yew lived for decades, where he started his political party and where he began to build Singapore into one of the richest countries in the world.
Mr Lee had said that he wanted the house to be demolished after his death rather than preserved as a museum, to prevent the public from “trampling” his private quarters.
But the words of his will Left the fate of the property in limbo and caused a rift between his three children – reflecting the intense debate over Singapore’s semi-authoritarian political system.
Now, an extraordinary voice has joined those who complain that the city-state’s prosperity has come at the expense of a government that lacks accountability: one of Mr. Lee’s own children.
“The idea that a good guy at the center can control it, and you rely on his benevolence to make sure everything is right, doesn’t work,” said Lee Hsien Yang, the youngest child, who The house wants to respect his father’s wishes, he said in a recent interview with The New York Times from London.
Following the death of Lee Kuan Yew in 2015, the eldest child, then Prime Minister of Singapore, argued that his father’s instructions for the bungalow were vague. Her siblings wanted it demolished, although one remained in the house and as long as she did so, its fate remained unresolved.
Then, after his death in October, the controversy reemerged – and escalated rapidly. Lee Hsien Yang, known as Yang by his parents and siblings, announced that he had obtained political asylum in Britain because he feared being wrongfully imprisoned in Singapore for dissent.
Yang said his brother – Lee Hsien Loong, who stepped down as prime minister in May – had abused his power in conflicts at home.
Yang, 67, described a pattern of harassment by the Singapore government in recent years. In 2020, his son was charged with contempt of court for criticizing Singapore’s courts in a private Facebook post. That year, his wife, a lawyer who had arranged for witnesses when he signed the patriarch’s will, was barred from practicing law for 15 months. The couple then faced a police investigation about lying under oath. He left Singapore in 2022.
In October, Yang announced that Britain had accepted his asylum request, ruling that he and his wife “fear persecution and therefore cannot return to your country.”
The Singapore government rejected the claims, saying the couple was free to return home. It said it was accountable to voters and an independent judiciary. It stated that Yang was engaged in an “extraordinary personal vendetta” against his brother Lung.
Loong, 72, who now holds the rank of senior minister, declined to comment because he has recused himself from the House case.
For Yang, the years-long controversy is evidence that “there are fundamental problems with the way Singapore is governed and run.”
Yang acknowledged that his father had detained opposition politicians and union leaders, but said he had “the country’s best interests at heart.”
The People’s Action Party has ruled Singapore with an iron fist for nearly 70 years. And even years after the Founding Fathers’ deaths, it continues to praise their legacy.
Some analysts say this has put Singapore at a crossroads.
“Are we able to move forward?” said Ja Ian Chong, who teaches political science at the National University of Singapore. “Or are we still stuck in this relatively brittle, big-man approach to politics?”
Lee Kuan Yew transformed a colonial outpost into an economic powerhouse in one generation. He spared no effort from interfering in the lives of Singaporeans and prioritized the community over the individual – a notion that some observers say points to the irony of a family feud.
“He understood that he would have to preserve the house if the government decided it was in the public interest,” Loong said in a 2016 letter to Lawrence Wong, who chaired a government committee formed to consider options for the property. Was part of, and is now the Prime Minister.
That panel concluded that the bungalow had historical significance, and that Lee Kuan Yew was responsible for its preservation. But surveys indicate that most Singaporeans want it broken. In October, the government said it was study again Whether or not to preserve a circa-1898 house.
‘Best Combination’
For decades, Lee Kuan Yew’s family appeared to be as orderly as he ran the state. His wife, Kwa Geok Choo, was in charge of the house at 38 Oxley Road, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Singapore.
In the 1950s, Mr Lee and a group of friends founded their political party, the PAP, in a basement dining room. most of The house was spartan. The furniture was old and mismatched; the family took a bath draining water from earthen potsEven after the sons got married and moved out, they still gathered for family lunch every Sunday.
Visitors immediately noticed that photographs of only one child were displayed: Loong’s.
“They found the best combination of our two DNAs,” Mr Lee told local journalists. “Others also have a combination of the two, but not as advantageously as he has. It’s the luck of the draw.”
Yang said of Loong, “He was the apple of my mother’s eye and she had ambitions for him.” “I was never an enemy towards him, nor did I have any jealousy or hatred towards him.”
Loong became Prime Minister in 2004. Yang was the chief executive of Singapore’s state-owned phone company at the time and said he had no political ambitions. That will change.
demolition debate
After Mr. Li’s wife died, he continued to live in the house with his daughter, Dr. Li Wei Ling, a neurologist. Mr Lee died in March 2015, and his children gathered at the bungalow the following month to read his will.
The house was left to Loong, but Ling could continue to live there. Once she moved out, the house was to be torn down. And if for some reason the house was not demolished, he did not want it to be open to the public.
Loong was blindsided and later publicly stated that he did not know about this last will. When the will was being discussed, he became “aggressive” and “threatening,” his sister wrote in a previously anonymous email to a friend in May 2015. She said Loong told his younger siblings that if they complied with the demolition clause, the government would intervene and declare the house a national monument.
According to Yang, this was the last time Loong spoke to Ling and Yang.
The next day Loong raised the matter in Parliament. He said he would like to see his father’s wishes fulfilled, but “it will be up to the government of the day to consider the matter.”
After a few months, the brothers and sisters seemed to have reached a solution. Yang bought the house from Loong For an undisclosed price.
But soon, the government formed a committee to explore alternatives to the House. This marked the beginning of Yang’s troubles with the state.
new opposition party
Loong told the panel that he was “very concerned” that the demolition clause in the will “had been included again under questionable circumstances.” He asked whether there was a conflict of interest from Yang’s wife, Lee Suet Fern, who had arranged for the signing of the will.
To the younger siblings, it appeared that the committee was “investigating the will,” Yang said, pointing out that a court had declared it binding.
In a joint statement in 2017, Yang and Ling said they did not trust their brother as a leader. He said that Loong and his wife were exploiting “Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy for their own political purposes” and harboring dynastic ambitions for their son.
Loong responded in Parliament, saying that he had not given instructions to the committee and that his only dealings with the panel were responses to their requests in writing.
He has refused to groom his son for the post.
The government then accused Yang’s wife of professional misconduct over the will. A disciplinary tribunal ruled against her, saying that she and her husband had created an “elaborate building of lies” during the proceedings.
The three-judge panel then ruled that Yang’s wife, Ms Li, had given a “fabricated and ultimately untrue description of her role” in the will, and suspended her for 15 months for misconduct. But it also ruled that she was not acting as Mr Lee’s lawyer, and it was satisfied with his will.
For Yang, the People’s Action Party had lost its way. He joined the Progress Singapore Party, a new opposition group, and considered running for the presidency as a formal post.
In 2022, police asked to interview him and his wife, saying they had lied in misconduct proceedings. The couple agreed to be interrogated at a later date, but soon left Singapore. It was not until 2023 that a minister revealed in Parliament that he was being investigated by the authorities.
In October, Yang conducted Ling’s funeral from a distance. Loong was not invited.
The walls of 38 Oxley Road are now broken, and part of the gate is rusted. On a recent Sunday, when a reporter rang the doorbell, a maid answered and said there was no one at home.