‘Singapore does not need another Lee’, says PM’s estranged brother as PAP pulls a surprise ahead of July 10 election

Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat makes an eleventh-hour move on Nomination Day to contest East Coast GRC against the Workers’ Party

Lee Hsien Yang, the Prime Minister’s brother who joined the Progress Singapore Party, will not contest the polls

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Lee Hsien Yang says he hopes to be a ‘catalyst for change’. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 11:52am, 30 Jun 2020Updated: 7:46pm, 30 Jun 2020

Campaigning for Singapore’s pandemic-plagued July 10 general election officially began on Tuesday with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong pitted against not just the country’s small opposition players but his estranged brother Lee Hsien Yang as well.

But despite an initial buzz of excitement – with Lee Hsien Yang seen at a coffee shop near a nomination centre for the district of Tanjong Pagar, the constituency once helmed by the siblings’ late father Lee Kuan Yew – he did not enter the centre to file for candidacy by the noon deadline.

“I have chosen not to stand for political office because I believe Singapore does not need another Lee,” the 62-year-old former corporate figure wrote on Facebook, after the close of nominations.

Publicly at odds with Prime Minister Lee, his elder brother, over a complex dispute involving their father’s bungalow, Lee Hsien Yang said he would contribute by speaking up and supporting candidates and parties he believed in.

Last week, he formally joined the new Progress Singapore Party (PSP).

“I do not seek power, prestige or financial rewards of political office. I hope to be a catalyst for change,” Lee Hsien Yang said on June 30.

Asked by reporters about his brother’s foray into politics, Prime Minister Lee said his younger sibling was “entitled to speak like anybody else”.