Thousands of people gathered in Singapore yesterday to bid farewell to former leader Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) in an unprecedented wave of sympathy after authorities had to temporarily suspend queues overnight to manage surging crowds.
The waiting time to enter Singapore’s Parliament House where Lee’s body was lying in state was as long as six hours just before midday, a rare sight in a city where public gatherings are tightly controlled.
Mourners walked by Lee’s coffin, draped with a Singaporean flag and flanked by five uniformed military officers, in silence. Many bowed. Some saluted. Others sobbed.
Photo: AFP
“In our lifetime, this is probably the only person who will garner this kind of respect from everyone, so I think it’s something that we should do,” Ho Shaw Ming said as he waited in line.
Lee, Singapore’s first prime minister, died on Monday at the age of 91.
He is credited with transforming the city-state from a British colonial outpost into one of the world’s wealthiest nations, with a strong, pervasive role for the state and little patience for dissent.
Photo: AFP
Commercial activity in Singapore, known for its shopping and food, is expected to slow significantly today. Several shopping mall owners and big stores such as Tangs and Metro said they would close on the day of the funeral.
The casino at Genting Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa is to be closed from 2pm to 6pm as a mark of respect, it said on its Web site.
Lee’s funeral procession is to begin at about 12:30pm and cover 15.4km to the National University of Singapore, where a funeral service will be held.
Asia-Pacific leaders including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and South Korean President Park Geun-hye are among those attending the service.
The number of visitors to Parliament House has exceeded 300,000, or 5 percent of Singapore’s population, since the public viewing opened on Wednesday morning.
More than half a million visitors have flocked to 18 designated community tributes, writing messages of condolence and leaving flowers.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and his ministers visited the queues near the parliament house and community centers where people were lining up.
“I am deeply moved by the overwhelming response of people wanting to visit my father’s lying in state at Parliament House,” Lee said on his Facebook page.
With elections expected as early as later this year, it was unclear whether the wave of support for the country’s founder would generate more votes for Lee’s People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore since independence.
Income inequality, resentment over immigration and expensive housing were among the issues which knocked the PAP’s share of the vote down to 60 percent from 67 percent in elections four years ago.
“Don’t expect sympathy votes for the PAP on account of the late Mr Lee,” Singapore Management University associate professor of law Eugene Tan said. “The PAP instead has the unenviable task of unequivocally showing that they are noble and worthy successors to the late Mr Lee and his founding generation of leaders.”
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