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Lee Kuan Yew

SINGAPORE. – Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, died on Monday aged 91, triggering a flood of tributes to the man who oversaw the tiny city-state’s rapid rise from a British colonial backwater to a global trade and financial centre.

US President Barack Obama described Lee, who ruled Singapore for three decades, as “a true giant of history” whose advice on governance and economic development had been sought by other world leaders down the years.

In his lifetime, Lee drew praise for his market-friendly policies, but also criticism at home and abroad for his strict controls over the Press, public protest and political opponents.

Lee had receded from public and political life over the past few years, but was still seen as an influential figure in the government of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his eldest son.

“The first of our founding fathers is no more. He inspired us, gave us courage, and brought us here,” a choked Prime Minister Lee said in a live television address. “To many Singaporeans, and indeed others too, Lee Kuan Yew was Singapore.”

The government declared a period of national mourning until his funeral on Sunday.

Singaporeans had been bracing for the news for days, and a sea of flowers had already piled up at the Singapore General Hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia.

“I’m so sad. He is my idol. He’s been so good to me, my family and everyone,” said Lua Su Yean (64). “His biggest achievement is that from zero he’s built up today’s Singapore.”

In keeping with Lee’s famously no-nonsense, pragmatic approach, business carried on as normal throughout the city, one of the world’s leading wealth management centres.

Hundreds of office workers queued at lunchtime in the central business district to buy a commemorative issue of the Straits Times newspaper.

At the stock exchange, the message “Remembering Lee Kuan Yew, 16 September 1923 to 23 March 2015” replaced the normal stream of news and market prices displayed on a bank of video.

Lee, a British-educated lawyer, is credited with building Singapore into one of the world’s wealthiest nations on a per capita basis with a strong, pervasive role for the state and little patience for dissent.

“Harry” Lee, a fourth-generation Singaporean, co-founded the People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled the city since 1959 and led the newly born country when it was separated from Malaysia in 1965.

Even after stepping down as leader in 1990 – signing off as the world’s then longest-serving prime minister – the acerbic Lee stayed on in the cabinet until 2011 and was a member of parliament until his death.

After stepping down as prime minister he remained influential as a senior minister in the cabinet of his successor, Goh Chok Tong, and later as “minister mentor” when his son became prime minister in 2004. – Reuters.