How a House Provoked a Feud in Singapore’s Lee Family: QuickTake

The long-running feud in Singapore’s most prominent family over a house has moved into the realm of politics. Lee Hsien Yang, the youngest child of Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, formally joined a new opposition party a day after his estranged brother, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, called an election for July 10. It was the latest public display of acrimony in a family that rarely aired its dirty linen before the elder Lee’s death in 2015, but now plays out in parliament and even on Facebook.

It centers on 38 Oxley Road, a colonial-era bungalow near the glitzy Orchard Road shopping belt in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew lived there for most of his 91 years and his will included a wish for the property eventually to be demolished; he said in a 2011 interview it was to avoid the cost of preserving it and the risk that it would fall into disrepair. The demolition would only happen after his daughter, Dr. Lee Wei Ling, moves out. All three siblings have said they want to honor the demolition request. But the two younger ones in 2017 accused their brother, the prime minister, of maneuvering to undermine their father’s instructions, citing the existence of a ministerial committee exploring options for the property. Prime Minister Lee, or PM Lee as he’s called, denied the allegations. His deputy said the committee wasn’t secret and had to review the situation in case Dr. Lee, who is a senior adviser at Singapore’s National Neuroscience Institute, moves out.