Mr Lee Hsien Yang rejects suggestion that he wants to redevelop Oxley Road for financial profit

SINGAPORE — In a three-page statement posted on Facebook on Saturday (July 1) to explain his position in the 38 Oxley Road dispute, Mr Lee Hsien Yang has rejected the suggestion that in pushing for the Lee family home to be demolished, he was in fact seeking to profit from any redevelopment of the site into a condominium.

His statement came two days ahead of a ministerial statement by his brother Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Parliament to address allegations that have arisen from the dispute against him and the Government. 

“It has been insinuated that I seek to redevelop the Oxley Road house into a condominium for financial profit after buying it at 150% market price. Beyond zero certainty on timing and the ability to demolish, this requires both rezoning by the URA (Urban Redevelopment Authority) and cooperation with the neighbours,” he said. 

“I have no inclination to seek either of these. Preservation of the house would be trampling on Lee Kuan Yew’s values, and it would be an affront to these same values to develop a luxury 'LKY' condominium. The price I paid for the house was simply a price I paid to help ensure my father's wishes are honoured.”

The house was bequeathed by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to his eldest son, PM Lee, who subsequently transferred it to his younger brother for 100 per cent of the property's market value, on top of a donation to charity of half the value. PM Lee himself donated the entire proceeds of the sale to charity.

Mr Lee Hsien Yang said: "I am just a son trying to honour my father's final wish: to demolish my father's house immediately when my sister, Wei Ling, no longer lives there. In the meantime, to ensure her the unfettered right to live in the only home she knows as long as she should wish."

He added: "Ling, being unmarried and without children of her own, stayed there with Papa and helped look after him in his final years. It was our father's wish that she should be permitted to stay in the original house for as long as she wanted."

However, he and his sister had “encountered opposition every step of the way” as they sought to remind the public of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's last wish. “It became clear that we faced a vast and coordinated effort by Hsien Loong against us. He did not want our father’s wishes remembered or carried out; he wished to rewrite history to claim that Lee Kuan Yew 'accepted' the preservation of his house," he said.

"Hsien Loong was ready to use his power and influence to thwart our father’s wishes, to meet Hsien Loong’s and Ho Ching’s personal political agenda."

He reiterated his claim that PM Lee and his wife Madam Ho Ching have "in private vehemently opposed demolition". "When my father died, the issue of carrying out both my parent’s wishes for their house came up. Our father firmly believed that demolition of his house was the right thing for Singapore," Mr Lee Hsien Yang said.

"He believed Singapore needed to focus on her future and not on monuments. My father named my sister and I his executors, and with it came his expectation and trust that we ensure his wishes are honoured."

Given what they were up against, Mr Lee Hsien Yang said he and his sister "have no other access" to the general public, which is why they took to social media to convey their messages.

"Since these events became public, many reached out to me. Some have scolded me for disrupting the status quo," he said. "Others have offered words of encouragement and support. But both groups often ponder what I hope to achieve through all this."

He said that it "would have been easy" for him to let things be. "I could have said to myself, 'This is too big for me. This political world is not my world. I could just let events take their course. This is not worth it'... why risk public outcry, suffer campaigns of character assassination, or even exile? But doing the right thing is rarely easy,” he said. 

He added: “I am not a perfect human being. But I do my best to act with the honour and integrity expected of me by my parents.”

Mr Lee stressed that he and his sister have a legal duty to carry out their father's wishes, "instead of allowing them to be perverted by sophistry and machinations".

“It was a difficult decision, but we were pushed into a corner. We have to stand up and fight for our parents even if it means bringing things into the public sphere as a last resort.”

He reiterated that he is a private person "who has always avoided public attention".  Pointing out that he had "never posted on Facebook" before the public spat, he said: "I am not a politician, and I have never desired to be a one. When I reach out to Singaporeans, please bear in mind that I am a novice. I have neither brigades of staff nor teams to back me up."

He said that both he and Dr Lee have "felt compelled" to bring the issues into the public sphere, and they were "pushed by Hsien Loong’s secret cabinet committee” to make public a "huge national controversy". PM Lee's younger siblings have repeatedly criticised the setting up of the committee, which is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean. In response, several government leaders, including Mr Teo, have noted that such committees are formed for a range of issues and the fate of 38 Oxley Road carried significant public interest.  

Mr Lee Hsien Yang stressed that Mr Lee Kuan Yew, along with his two younger children, "recognise that the Government has the power to gazette the house". "No man stands above the law after all. We are simply very sad that it is in fact Hsien Loong using powers and instruments of the state to achieve preservation of the house for his personal agenda, whilst pretending to be an honourable son," he said. 

Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat also weighed in on the dispute on Saturday. 

Writing on Facebook, Mr Chee, who served as Mr Lee Kuan Yew's Principal Private Secretary from 2008 to 2011, said he got to know Dr Lee during the three years and they became friends. "Wei Ling is someone I admire and respect. She has strong views and can be very blunt at times, but she has a good heart and genuinely cares for the people around her," Mr Chee said. 

He added: "I do not believe Wei Ling will intentionally cause harm to her country. So I have asked myself over and over again, why is she doing this? Has she been misled and misunderstood what happened?"

Mr Chee cited Mr Lee Hsien Yang's latest statement, and pointed out that his father "would not wish for a family dispute to be turned into a public quarrel that hurt Singapore’s international standing". 

"Neither would he wish for baseless allegations to be made against Government leaders and institutions, undermining confidence in the systems he created," Mr Chee said. "Mr Lee (Kuan Yew) would put Singapore’s interests above personal interests."

Adding that Mr Lee Kuan Yew "would be the first to insist that the law must apply equally to his will and the house at 38 Oxley Road just as it does to all other Singaporeans", Mr Chee said: "He would not have wanted his family to be given special treatment — in fact this would make him most unhappy as it goes against his values and what he believed in."