The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (44 page)

As vote-winners, our future ministers were a mixed lot. Raja turned out to be a quick learner, speaking forcefully in English and reducing his editorial style to punchy street language. He also spoke bazaar Malay and got his point across effectively in a strong voice and with expressive body language. On the other hand, Keng Swee was dreadful; with a first-class mind, he prepared his speeches meticulously, but delivered them in a dull monotone, mumbling, reading from a script, and looking bored.

In a multiracial society, we had one inescapable problem. Some of our candidates might be natural open-air orators, but no one could make a speech at an election rally and move the whole audience to laugh, or sigh, or cry or be angry together. Whatever language he used and however good he was, only one section of the crowd could understand him at any one time, so he had to reach the others through gestures, facial expressions and his tone of voice.

Bazaar Malay was the simplest and most widely understood language, and our most effective speaker in it was Yaacob bin Mohamed who had a dramatic, brilliant delivery with which he reached the non-Malays. To decry the boastfulness of the opposition, he quoted a Malay proverb from Terengganu, the land of turtles from where he came: “A hen lays one egg, the whole village hears her cackles; a turtle lays eggs by the
hundred, not a sound is heard.” In other words, the PAP brought much benefit to the workers, but never boasted about it. This drew tremendous cheers from the crowd. Those were the days before television, when a good voice and a strong, commanding presence were distinct advantages.

Yaacob was of humble origins. Born in north Malaya and educated at a local religious school, he had driven a truck for the Indian National Army during the war, and when he came down to Singapore in the early 1950s, had worked as an itinerant barber before becoming a religious teacher. He had joined API, a very radical Malay nationalist party, switched to UMNO in 1954, found it too conservative and not egalitarian enough, and so switched to the PAP in 1957. Later, I was to appoint him a parliamentary secretary, then minister of state. He was a great asset with the Malays. His rise from the bottom of the ladder was a feature of those revolutionary times. The old order had lost its hold, society was in a state of flux, and many uneducated men and women from the working class seized the chance to climb to the top through sheer ability, energy and luck.

The great majority of people were poor, many of them living in slums, and as the party of the workers, we received few donations from the wealthy, forcing us to run our campaign on a shoestring. But we could count on the wholehearted support of volunteers. Candidates who could afford it met their own election expenses; the party provided standard posters and manifestoes that varied only in their photographs and biodata. We hired open lorries, pick-up trucks or light vans to use as platforms at meetings, parking two side by side for big rallies; often they were lent free by transport operators who were our supporters. They might have hoped for future benefits, but many continued to help us out in subsequent elections after we had taken office and done them no favours. At night, we tapped electricity from “friendly” shops to light our platforms with strings of naked bulbs, and although we had to hire loudspeakers, with them came the services of small-time electricians
who strung out the wires for us on the trees and lamp-posts (sometimes producing a shrill screech in the middle of a speech).

Electioneering meant going to odd corners of Singapore that the English-educated middle class in general would not normally visit. The smells of sullage, the giant rats and mangy strays, the open drains full of garbage and stale leavings from hawker stalls in Chinatown were what I remembered of Tanjong Pagar in the 1950s. At night the hawkers would appear from nowhere and surround our rallies, expecting good business. On the fringes of the crowd there would be large numbers of children, reminders of our high 4 per cent birth rate, out for an evening of fun, some with parents, many unaccompanied. In rural areas like Punggol, Sembawang and Yio Chu Kang, the powerful smell of pig waste was unforgettable and was easily recognised in 1976 when I passed through the countryside of China.

It was a hot, sweaty campaign. I would make three to four speeches in one evening, driving from one ward to another, at meetings that started at 7 pm and had to stop at 10. Fortunately, I had given up smoking and never lost my voice, but on a sticky night I would be dripping with sweat by the time I had spoken in two, sometimes three languages – Malay, Mandarin and English. When the crowd was large, warm and responsive, I would exceed my allotted 30 minutes, always speaking late or last because the crowds would begin to drift away once the principal speaker had finished. Choo would have a fresh singlet and shirt for me to change into after each speech. And now I travelled in style because once we decided in February 1959 to fight to win, Choo had bought a Mercedes Benz 220 to replace the ageing Studebaker. She wanted us to be seen in it so nobody would doubt that I could afford a Mercedes without becoming prime minister, and she would accompany me to meetings, sometimes driving me herself.

The rallies were demoralising for the SPA and Liberal Socialist candidates. They attracted very poor crowds and did not hold any big mass
rallies. The English-educated were comfortably off, not the type to stand around listening to speeches. The Chinese-speaking workers spent most of their time in the streets anyway because they had poor, comfortless homes, often no more than hot, stuffy cubicles. For them, our open-air meetings with speeches in the Chinese dialects and Mandarin were free entertainment and a harbinger of better things to come.

These big rallies could be colourful occasions. Elections bring out the diverse cultural habits and practices of our different races. The Chinese showed support for their candidates by presenting them personally with silk banners with elegant four- or eight-character aphorisms stitched onto them. A banner could measure up to three to four yards across and require as many people to come on stage to help the donor unfold and show to an admiring audience. After the candidate had received it with a ceremonial bow, there would be the souvenir photograph. A popular candidate could collect 50 to 100 Chinese banners, which, when hung up between strings of coloured bulbs, lent a rally a festive air. Each banner would display the name of the donor or donors, perhaps a clan society or a trade association that identified itself with the candidate and, having thus committed its members, would work to help him win.

The Indians presented garlands of fresh flowers, usually white frangipani or marigolds bound with strips of gold and silver tinsel, sometimes weighing as much as two pounds. On occasions, I have had six to 12 garlands placed around my neck by one supporter after another until my head was lost in the flowers, and my neck was severely strained. I was lucky I was not allergic to the flowers they used. (However, worse things can happen. Rajiv Gandhi, India’s prime minister, was assassinated by a woman who came up to him at an election rally not only to garland him but also to detonate the explosives concealed on her person.)

The Malays presented
tanjak
, headdresses made from silk brocade woven with silver or gold thread and worn on ceremonial occasions by high-ranking chiefs. These were expensive and seldom given.

Addressing a crowd of about 2,000 workers on an open field just outside the Naval Base in Sembawang on 17 May, I stressed that they need not fear for their jobs when we took office. We were not seeking a separate independence for Singapore, and had therefore agreed that the British would retain sovereignty over their bases until we merged with the Federation of Malaya. This reassured the 45,000 civilian workers employed by the armed services, many of them Indians who had come from India with the British forces, and had the vote because they were British subjects.

At a lunchtime rally at Clifford Pier, I explained why we would keep the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance if we took office, emphasising that the real fight now would be between the PAP and the MCP. I recounted how Marshall had vacillated, been chased from pillar to post, and retreated in the face of each communist-led demonstration; how on the other hand Lim Yew Hock had used the big stick and the gun, until the British and their helicopters took over. I said bravely, “The PAP government will not fall into either of these errors. We shall not be intimidated or browbeaten, nor will we use repression as the means of government. We shall govern with the will and support of the people, firmly, wisely and justly.” I wanted to avoid any charge of winning the election under false pretences.

Goode had kept in touch with me after the constitutional conference in London in May 1958, and on matters that concerned the future government he would always give me an opportunity to express my views. For example, he asked me what I thought of the choice of John Wyatt as chief justice to fill the gap until after the election, when the appointment would be in the hands of the new prime minister. The British did not want to make any appointment that we would later cancel or reverse. I did not object to any of them. His secretary, Pamela Hickley, would ring up Choo at Lee & Lee and ask if it was convenient for me to see the governor, usually around teatime. I would meet him
in the office wing of Government House on the second floor (which I have occupied since 1971). We would talk for an hour over tea, poured English-fashion from a silver teapot through a strainer and served with fresh milk and sugar. The meetings continued even during the election campaign, when he once teased me with taking support away from Lim Yew Hock and the others like someone taking lollipops from a child. I warned him as the campaign heated up that it was impossible for us to keep to our policy statements in “The Tasks Ahead”. The ground was getting worked up, and we had to go along with the mood. I assured him that we would remain firmly committed to our programme.

Polling day, Saturday, 30 May 1959, was quiet and orderly in contrast to the election in April 1955. Under the new laws I had persuaded Lim Yew Hock to pass, voting was compulsory, it was illegal to carry voters to polling stations in motorcars, there was no canvassing and no party workers were allowed to wear party symbols on their persons anywhere near or in the polling stations. There was no undue influence, intimidation, bribery or corruption. The polls closed at 8 pm; counting began at seven centres from 9 pm onwards, and ended at 2:45 am.

We won 43 out of 51 seats, with 53.4 per cent of the votes cast by 90 per cent of the electorate. The SPA won four, UMNO three and independents one (A.P. Rajah). Lim Yew Hock won in Cairnhill (against Marshall) and Hamid Jumat in Geylang Serai. I told a press conference, “The people’s verdict is clear and decisive. It is a victory of right over wrong, clean over dirty, righteousness over evil.” The candidate with the biggest majority was Ong Eng Guan, the former mayor. His Hong Lim voters in Chinatown fully approved of his excesses, and this solid endorsement added to his megalomania.

19. Taking Charge

It was a victory but I was not jubilant. I had begun to realise the weight of the problems that we were to face – unemployment, high expectations of rapid results, communist unrest, more subversion in the unions, schools and associations, more strikes, fewer investments, more unemployment, more trouble. Lim Chin Siong and Fong Swee Suan would soon work on the Chinese-speaking ground again to undermine us. When Lennox-Boyd sent his congratulations, I replied:

“Few people know the perils of the journey that the state of Singapore has now embarked upon. How well we come out at the end of the next five years depends upon how well we plan and how hard we work, how well the United Kingdom government understands what is happening and why, and upon the gods, of which there are several varieties in this little island of 220 square miles. The first factor we determine, the second is for you, and the third I leave to the people of Singapore to make such incantations as will bring the blessings of the deities upon us.”

There was to be a fourth factor – the attitude of our neighbours to the north. The first person to felicitate me publicly had been the prime minister of Malaya. “The people of Singapore have made their choice clear. I congratulate the PAP on winning such a large majority,” he told the press. But that was not the Tunku; it was Dato (later Tun) Abdul Razak bin Hussain, who was standing in for him briefly while the Tunku was on leave. He was less diplomatic:

“Their victory was expected. Other parties were divided and were not able to form a strong opposition to the PAP. I am glad that my
friend, Tun Lim Yew Hock, has won. He will at least provide a strong opposition to the government. On the other hand if the opposition is going to be effective, it must reunite even outside the council or otherwise the position will be the same.”

I received many personal messages from people who had been sympathetic to me, including the prominent anti-colonial champion of the Fabian Society, Lady Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, who had told Singapore’s Special Branch officer Richard Corridon that I was a good socialist, not a communist. James Callaghan, Labour MP and later British prime minister, a friend who had visited Singapore in the early 1950s and knew the area, warned in his letter of congratulations, “I know from my contacts here how touchy is the government of the Federation and you will have your work cut out to reassure them. Press reaction here has been mixed. There are fears from those who do not understand the situation.”