Veteran Singaporean opposition leader J.B. Jeyaretnam died yesterday. He had waged a long and lonely campaign for greater political freedom in the tightly governed city-state.
He was attempting a fresh political comeback when he succumbed to heart failure.
The 82-year-old British-trained lawyer and former MP was the nemesis of Singapore’s iron-fisted founding leader Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), 85, whose People’s Action Party (PAP) will celebrate 50 uninterrupted years in power next year.
PHOTO: AFP
“I haven’t got very many more years,” Jeyaretnam said in July at the launch of the new Reform Party, which was to be his vehicle for a comeback after years in the political wilderness.
Jeyaretnam, remembered by many Singaporeans for his old-school lambchop sideburns and a gravelly voice that thrilled audiences in court, parliament and street rallies, said he feared “no one except God.”
Born Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam in 1926 during a family visit to what is now Sri Lanka, he was often a solitary voice in largely ethnic Chinese Singapore, a prosperous financial center where protests are restricted and government critics complain of limited access to the media.
Despite being driven to financial ruin by costly defamation suits mounted by PAP leaders, and sidelined by younger opposition figures, Jeyaretnam was still plotting a return to parliament when he died.
“He’s such a man who never gives up ... fighting all the way,” long-time political ally Ng Teck Siong said on radio station 938Live after news of Jeyaretnam’s death was carried by the city-state’s pro-government media.
Singaporean leaders maintain that the Western-style democracy Jeyaretnam championed could ruin a tiny republic with no natural resources and surrounded by far bigger neighbors, an argument Jeyaretnam never bought.
During his career, Jeyaretnam spent more than US$900,000 paying off damages awarded to PAP leaders and had to sell off his house in Singapore, settling in his later years in the neighboring Malaysian city of Johor Bahru.
Lee, who ruled for three decades and still serves in the Cabinet of his son, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍), never concealed his deep hatred of Jeyaretnam, calling him a “thoroughly destructive force” who was “all sound and fury.”
Even during his darkest days, Jeyaretnam soldiered on. He helped support his cause by selling books on the sidewalks of Singapore, and managed to clear his debts to pave the way for a fresh stab at public office.
“I get my strength from somewhere else, if you know what I mean,” he said in an interview in 2006. “I refuse to conform to the world.”
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS