To those who criticised the generous salaries offered to his ministers, Lee Kuan Yew — the politician credited with transforming Singapore from a resource-poor tropical port into one of Asia’s wealthiest nations — had a simple retort.
“You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government,” Singapore’s founding father remarked in 2007, a reflection of his fear that standards would slip. “You get that alternative and you’ll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again.”
Two years after his death, an outbreak of feuding among the Lee children has highlighted faultlines in the gleaming city-state he shaped. In a very public row that has captivated Singaporeans, Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister and son of the founding leader, has been accused by younger brother Lee Hsien Yang and sister Lee Wei Ling of failing to honour their father’s wishes and harbouring dynastic ambitions for his own son.