With the possible exception of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, there are few nations that so closely reflect one man’s legacy as Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew, now 91 and in hospital with severe pneumonia, can claim to have built the nation that today has a higher material standard of living than the UK, the US or Norway. His punchily written memoir, From Third World to First, shows an acute awareness of his achievement in conjuring a prosperous city state from an unpromising history and geography. But how will Singapore fare when its founding father is gone?
In some ways, it is too early — not to mention somewhat bad manners — to ask. As Mr Lee himself once told The New York Times, one should not judge a man until he is dead. “Close the coffin, then decide”, is how he put it. Indeed, a true reckoning is impossible while he lives. That is partly due to Singaporeans’ sense of respect and indebtedness, and partly due to a lingering fear engendered by his persistent recourse to litigation when he feels maligned. One of his early collaborators whispered conspiratorially when the subject of Mr Lee’s legacy came up: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
In another sense, the dilemmas Singapore will face in the post-Lee era are already upon us. Mr Lee retired from the cabinet in 2011 after the People’s Action party that he co-founded suffered its worst electoral result in 50 years. (The long-ruling party won 81 of 87 parliamentary seats despite garnering only 60 per cent of the votes.) Mr Lee’s semi-retirement — even now he remains a member of parliament — ended a career that spanned 30 years as prime minister and another 20 as senior minister and minister mentor, a role created by his son, Lee Hsien Loong, who became prime minister in 2004.