Singapore is the target of a conspiracy by human rights groups that criticize the country’s governance, founding father Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) said in a newspaper report yesterday.
“There is a conspiracy to do us in. Why? ... They see us as a threat,” Lee, 84, was quoted as saying in the Straits Times.
The perceived threat arises because Russians and Chinese have been coming to Singapore to study the small country’s success, he said in a dialogue with the Economic Society.
Lee’s comments came after an association of global lawyers last week said that, despite its impressive economic development, Singapore fails to meet international standards for political and human rights, and there are concerns about the independence of its judiciary.
“Who are they? Have they ever run a country, created jobs for community and given them a life? We have and we know what it requires,” Lee said, without specifically referring to the report by the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
But during his dialogue, Lee was asked whether Singapore needed a Western-style liberal democracy to succeed.
“Different people have different cultures and forge different consensus and seek different solutions to their problems,” said Lee, who holds the influential rank of Minister Mentor in the Cabinet of his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍).
Singapore’s leaders say the country’s tough laws against dissent and other political activity are necessary to ensure the stability which has helped it achieve economic success.
Meanwhile, a new political party has called for an end to rule by the elite minority in Singapore, and rejected accusations the opposition would quickly ruin the country if it took power.
The Reform Party was responding to a recent warning to voters by Lee Kuan Yew against putting the opposition at the helm of government “in a moment of fickleness or just sheer madness.”
“Let me say from here to Mr Lee Kuan Yew, that that is crass arrogance on his part,” said the party’s secretary general, J.B. Jeyaretnam in a speech to inaugurate the party late on Friday.
“I tell him from here, tonight: We’ve had enough of a minority, of the elite, making all our decisions,” he said.
Lee, 84, is widely credited for shepherding the underdeveloped port into one of Asia’s wealthiest nations in one generation.
His People’s Action Party (PAP) has been in power since 1959 and has all but two elected seats in the 84-member parliament.
The opposition plays only a marginal role in Singapore, but four other parties sent delegations to the Reform Party launch.
Jeyaretnam said he did not know if the parties could unite for the next election due by 2011.
“I don’t know. It depends on a number of factors ... You know, policies and outlook, and methods,” the lawyer said.
Jeyaretnam, then with the Workers’ Party, made political history in 1981 when he became the first opposition politician elected to parliament.
He was declared bankrupt in 2001 after failing to pay libel damages to members of the PAP, including a former prime minister.
Last year Jeyaretnam, 82, cleared the bankruptcy, which had prevented him from running for political office.
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