Death of matriarch lifts veil on Singapore's first family

Death of matriarch lifts veil on Singapore's first family

Roberto Coloma

SINGAPORE - Singaporeans got a rare glimpse into the private life of the country's most powerful family on Thursday following the funeral of elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew's wife.

Kwa Geok Choo, 89, who is also the mother of current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, was cremated on Wednesday after a tightly guarded private ceremony restricted to relatives, close associates and local media.

But in eulogies published in full on Thursday, family members gave intimate details of a close-knit, frugal clan with ordinary lives behind the security cordon -- and a passion for books and academic excellence.

The Straits Times carried on its front page a picture of the 87-year-old widower, famous for being a tough political warrior, tenderly touching his wife's face in an open coffin after bringing his fingers to his own lips.

In an inside page, another photo showed grandson Li Yipeng comforting Lee Kuan Yew by placing both hands on the old man's stooped shoulders.

"My heart is heavy with sorrow and grief," Lee, a former prime minister who drove Singapore's transformation from sleepy backwater to first-world status, said in his eulogy.

The couple had been together since marrying in England in 1947 while they were both studying law at Cambridge University.

Kwa went on to become one of Singapore's most successful lawyers, supporting the family and running the household as Lee embarked on his political career.

Lee was in hospital with a chest infection when his wife died on Saturday at home, generating public concern about his health and emotional state, but he participated fully in Wednesday's funeral ceremonies.

Lee still appears sprightly for a man of his age, thanks to a strict diet and exercise regime, although his eulogy hinted at his own sense of mortality.

"Her last wish she shared with me was to enjoin our children to have our ashes placed together as we were in life," he revealed.

Lee remains a powerful figure as an adviser to his son's cabinet with the special title Minister Mentor -- Singaporeans refer to him as "MM Lee" -- and as a roving ambassador looking after the city-state's strategic interests.

He served as prime minister from the time Singapore gained self-rule from colonial ruler Britain in 1959 until he stepped down in 1990 in favour of his deputy Goh Chok Tong, who in turn stepped aside in 2004 for Lee's son.

The People's Action Party (PAP) that Lee co-founded has been returned to power by overwhelming majorities since 1959, allowing it to plan orderly successions thanks to its nearly total control of parliament.

In his eulogy, Lee said his wife played an important but low-key role in crucial moments of Singapore's history, including drafting the constitution of the PAP and legal pacts with Malaysia, which expelled Singapore in 1965.

The couple's grandchildren, whose privacy is jealously guarded by the family, spoke of mundane but telling details of the Lee lifestyle.

Grandson Li Shengwu, 25, said that instead of letting their grandchildren watch television at Sunday family lunches, the Lees installed a mini-library ranging from Peter Rabbit to Arthurian legend next to the kids' dining table.

"She passed to her grandchildren a love of learning and reading, as well as the kind of knowledge not found in print," he added in a tribute that quoted Shakespeare, Victorian author Samuel Butler and the biblical book Ecclesiastes.

Li Xiuqi, 29, said her grandparents had no shower at home until after Kwa suffered her first stroke during a visit to London in 2003, giving the couple's children an opportunity to renovate the old family bungalow.

"They levelled the bathroom floor and installed a shower. This was a big deal because all these years, my grandparents had still been bathing with the old-fashioned system -- scooping from a tub of water the same way they bathed me when I was little!" - AFP