Reform party's kenneth jeyaretnam: Pm lee owes his position to his father

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In an interview with the British press International Business Times [Source], Reform Party Secretary General Kenneth Jeyaretnam made bold statements claiming Singapore's current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong owed his position to his recently deceased father Lee Kuan Yew, and called for him to step down.

"Lee Hsien Loong needs to step down. He's been prime minister for 10 years and he owes his position to his father. Whatever people say, it's a clear example of nepotism. There needs to be a change. Singapore is not the Lee Family and we need to get rid of the climate of fear," Said Kenneth to IBTimes.

Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew is controversial to many. Freedom and opposition were limited in the name of nation building and progress. The country however indeed flourished under his leadership and prospered from a third world trading post to a first world nation today. First world at least in terms of GDP, amount of foreign investment, infrastructures and the level of cosmopolitan in today's Singapore society.

The Reform Party leader is the son of former Anson MP Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, who died in 2008 shortly after the formation of the Reform Party. JBJ faced numerous persecutions as an Opposition politician when he took over the Workers' Party in 1971. He was imprisoned in 1986 for allegedly falsifying the accounts of his party funds under the Singapore Court, however, this charge was later overturned by the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. The Singapore PAP government refused to discharge his convictions and hence banned JBJ from contesting in the 1991 elections. JBJ was also sued for defamation by then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at a price of $260,000. In 1995 he was sued again and made to pay $715,000 in total costs to the PAP. He went into bankruptcy only in 2001 for failing to keep up with the payments of damages. He died of heart failure in 2008 [Source]

Kenneth Jeyaretnam has taken over the Reform Party following his father's death, and is pushing for regime change under his direction.



"We are a democratic party that stands for accountability. We're not there for check and balance. We are there for regime change. We've been saying this since 2009," he noted in his interview with IBTimes.

In the interview, he also said that reducing National Service liability, returning the CPF fund to the people and abolishing the 99 year ruling of HDB flats were some of Kenneth's key campaigns.

"We don't want the situation where the Singapore government owns 80% of the land – Singaporeans should not be on 99-year leasehold agreements. And with CPF, at the moment we save far too much of our income in proportion to possible investment opportunities. We should let the individual decide how much they want to save," he said.

He has also criticized Singapore's judiciary system in the interview:

"And we need an independent judiciary with restriction from political suits. Our party can't even publish a newspaper without getting a permit from the government, and to receive that we have to state all the salaries and assets of the editors and leaders of the party. This scares people off."

One of Kenneth's biggest concerns is the lack of transparency in Singapore's Budget and the relationship between the Government and the two sovereign wealth fund companies GIC and Temasek Holdings. He mentioned Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, position as CEO of Temasek Holdings is a conflict of interest.




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