Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter Lee Wei Ling dies at 69 in Singapore

A collage of photographs featuring his late sister Lee Wei Ling that Singapore's former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong shared on Instagram. Photo: Instagram/LeeHsienLoong

Lee Wei Ling, the daughter of Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, died at home on Wednesday morning at the age of 69.

She was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare and degenerative brain disease, in 2020.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong said of his younger sister: "She was fiercely loyal to friends, sympathised instinctively with the underdog, and would mobilise actively to do something when she saw unfairness, or suspected wrongdoing. She was a fighter."

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He also acknowledged the rift that had come between them in the years since their parents' deaths. He recalled Lee Kuan Yew telling him when he was 13 to take care of his mother and younger siblings if anything were to happen to the senior Lee.

"Sadly, after he passed away in 2015, a shadow fell between my siblings and me, and I was unable to fulfil his wish. But I held nothing against Ling, and continued to do whatever I could to ensure her welfare," the former prime minister and eldest of the Lee siblings said.

Lee Wei Ling and brother Lee Hsien Yang, 67, are estranged from minister Lee over what to do with their family home at 38 Oxley Road, where she lived, following their father's death.

Of his sister's condition, Lee Hsien Loong wrote: "She took it with her usual fortitude and stoicism, and posted about it as one of those things in life to be borne and endured ... She knew what it meant, and made the most of the time she had even as her health declined."

He also noted her academic prowess and how she was eventually awarded the President's Scholarship, regarded as the most prestigious public undergraduate scholarship in Singapore, and became the director of Singapore's National Neuroscience Institute from 2004 to 2014.

For a time, Lee Wei Ling was a regular columnist, writing about her personal life and on topics such as society and religion, her brother noted. Her columns were compiled into a book, A Hakka Woman's Singapore Stories: My life as a daughter, doctor and diehard Singaporean.

Lee Hsien Yang announced on Facebook shortly before 6am that his sister had died at home. He wrote: "At our father's funeral in 2015, Ling closed her eulogy thus 'I can't break down [and cry], I am a Hakka woman.' Ling, I am less stoic than you."

Her wake will be held at Singapore Casket at Lavender Street from Thursday to Saturday, according to Lee Hsien Yang in a Facebook post on Wednesday evening. Visiting hours will be from 2pm to 10pm on Thursday, 10am to 10pm on Friday, and 10am to 1pm on Saturday.

Lee Wei Ling revealed in 2020 that she had progressive supranuclear palsy. She described the brain disease as a "Parkinson's-like illness that slows physical movements, impairs fast eye movements and balance", eventually resulting in death.

In his Facebook post, Lee Hsien Yang asked that donations be made in lieu of flowers to charities that he said would be meaningful to his sister - Canossa Mission Singapore, Parkinson Society Singapore and Total Well-Being SG Limited.

He told local media outlet CNA that he would not be returning to Singapore for his sister's wake and funeral and was organising it remotely. He and his wife, lawyer Lee Suet Fern, left Singapore amid police investigations for giving false evidence in judicial proceedings over Lee Kuan Yew's will, police said in March last year.

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong also offered his condolences in a Facebook post on Wednesday, noting that Lee Wei Ling devoted her life to medicine.

He wrote: "Throughout her career, she was unswerving in her focus on patient welfare and medical ethics. Later in her career, Dr Lee wrote newspaper columns, where she shared her stoic outlook in life, as well as stories of Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

"Many readers would have come away enriched by her strong convictions and incisive observations."

In 2017, Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang made public the conflict with their older brother, who was then prime minister, alleging he was misusing his power to scuttle their efforts to demolish the family bungalow, according to their father's wishes.

Lee Hsien Loong has refuted his younger siblings' claim that he hoped to keep the bungalow intact for political capital in light of the reverence with which most Singaporeans still view Lee Kuan Yew.

The house is currently owned by Lee Hsien Yang. Lee Hsien Loong earlier said his father bequeathed the property to him, but he then sold it to his brother at a fair market valuation. The proceeds were donated to charity.

A ministerial committee set up in April 2018 to decide the fate of the house, which Lee Wei Ling was still living in at the time, provided three options for a future government: gazette the property as a national monument, retain the basement dining room and tear down the rest, or demolish the entire building.

Lee Hsien Yang and his wife are at present believed to be in Britain.

Additional reporting byCNA

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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