Lee Kuan Yew

Lee Kuan Yew (born September 16, 1923, Singapore) is Singaporean statesman, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore (1959-1990), one of the creators of the Singapore "economic miracle". He became a key figure in the history of modern Singapore, where he is revered as the nation's founding father.

He was re-elected to the role of Prime Minister of the country 8 times. In total, Lee held ministerial posts for 52 years. Over the years of his rule, Lee transformed Singapore from a British colony into a developed country with a dynamically developing economy.

He created a universal system of highly efficient and anti-corrupt government. Defending multiculturalism, he made English a common language for the integration of immigrant society and for the promotion of trade with Western countries, while at the same time maintaining bilingualism in schools to save the native language.

At the same time, he carried out a number of tough authoritarian reforms. State control over the media during his rule was established, and any public protest actions were banned. 

Biography

Lee Kuan Yew was on September 16, 1923 in Singapore, in a middle-class Chinese family. His native language was English, which was very unusual for Chinese at that time, since his parents did not know each other's native languages and used English like a common language for both of them.

Lee Kuan Yew received his primary education at a Singapore elementary school. After graduating from “Raffles College” in Singapore in 1945 (now the National University of Singapore), Lee Kuan Yew went to the UK, where he first graduated from the London School of Economics, and then from the University of Cambridge, where he received two "red" diplomas — in law and economics.

In 1949 he returned to Singapore. Then in 1950 he became a lawyer and practiced law until 1959. During the same period, in 1954, he founded the moderate social-democratic "People's Action Party (PAP)", in which he held the position of general secretary, in 1959 he brought it to the power.

Lee succeeded in getting Britain to abandon its colonial rule in Singapore, and as a result of a national referendum in 1962, achieved the creation of an alliance with other former British territories in Indochina. His plan was to form the Malaysian Federation. However, racial prejudice and ideological differences led to the fact that Singapore separated from Malaysia just in two years later and became a sovereign city-state.

He served as Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. In 1990-2004, he was a senior minister in the government of his successor Goh Chok Tong. In 2004-2011, he held the position of minister-mentor in the government of the third Prime Minister of Singapore and concurrently his son Li Xianlong.

Lee Kaun Yu died of pneumonia on March 23, 2015 at the age of 91. With the death of Lee Kuan Yew, a general seven-day national mourning was declared, which lasted from March 23 to March 29, 2015. The funeral took place on March 29, 2015 at 14:00 local time.