J.B. Jeyaretnam, an opposition politician in Singapore

J.B. Jeyaretnam

Oct 9th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Joshua “Ben” Jeyaretnam, an opposition politician in Singapore, died on September 30th, aged 82

AFP

EVEN in appearance, he seemed rather out of place in Singapore’s gleaming, ultra-modern urban landscape. In the early 1980s bankers and stockbrokers on their lunch breaks would shuffle in embarrassment past a courteous, dignified figure, vaguely reminiscent, in his muttonchop whiskers, of a Victorian statesman—Gladstone, say. J.B. Jeyaretnam would be railing against the government of the People’s Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew and hawking the Hammer, the organ of his opposition Workers’ Party.

The government managed to ensure Mr Jeyaretnam was out of place in other ways, too. When, later that decade, The Economist’s correspondent in Singapore invited him to a party for a visiting editor, the gathering quickly polarised into two unequal camps. Few guests, even among the expatriate businessmen there, were willing to be seen mingling with him. It was hard to imagine him as a dangerous subversive. But that was how the government seemed to see him; and as it was leading Singapore to extraordinary prosperity and stability, it seemed wisest not to upset it.

Mr Lee regarded Mr Jeyaretnam with unabashed contempt, as an adhesive nuisance rather like chewing-gum (banned in Singapore). “All sound and fury”, he wrote in his memoirs, adding that Mr Jeyaretnam was “a poseur, always seeking publicity, good or bad”. Mr Lee decided, however, that he was useful as a “sparring partner” for young PAP politicians untempered in the struggle for independence. His son, Lee Hsien Loong, who is now prime minister, took an equally dim view. In a letter of condolence to Mr Jeyaretnam’s two sons, he accused their father of helping “neither to build up a constructive opposition, nor our parliamentary tradition.”

Yet, the younger Mr Lee added, one had to respect Mr Jeyaretnam’s “dogged tenacity”. It was indeed remarkable. Born to Christian parents during a family visit to Jaffna, the heartland of Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan) Tamils, he was brought up in Singapore and, after studying law in London, built a legal practice at home. But he dabbled in politics, not, as a sensible man would have done, as a PAP member, but in opposition, at a time when the ruling party had a monopoly of parliamentary seats. In 1971 he revived the moribund Worker’s Party and preached the socialist ideals he had picked up in post-war London.

He stood for parliament in three general elections and two by-elections, losing every time. He also began to lose money, in a series of libel suits. In 1976 he was found guilty of accusing Lee Kuan Yew of nepotism and corruption and of being unfit to be prime minister. Mr Lee was awarded damages and costs. Appeals—as far as the Privy Council in London—were all defeated. In all, Mr Jeyaretnam calculated that over the years he paid out more than S$1.6m (more than $900,000) in damages and costs, sometimes for remarks that in many democracies would not lead to libel actions but be regarded as part of the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary politics.

Bloodied but unbowed

The bills mounted after 1981 when, at the sixth attempt, he won a seat in parliament at a by-election in the Anson constituency. Mr Lee blamed the failings of the PAP candidate as a public speaker, and the relocation, to create a container-holding area, of some of Anson’s dockers, who were not given other homes. But in his memoirs he also admitted that, with the dissipation of the sense of crisis that had surrounded independence and the split from Malaysia in 1965, voters wanted an opposition voice in parliament. In the 1984 general election Mr Jeyaretnam held Anson with an increased margin.

He was soon back in court as well as in parliament, accused of misstating the Workers’ Party’s accounts. Found guilty of perjury in 1986, he was fined, served a month in jail, became ineligible to sit in parliament for five years and was disbarred from legal practice. Again, he took his appeal to the Privy Council, which in 1988 overturned his disbarment and ruled he was the victim of a “grievous injustice”. Singapore subsequently abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council.

Mr Jeyaretnam returned to the political fray, winning a seat in parliament again in 1997. He left it in 2001 and quit the Workers’ Party in disgust at its refusal to help him fight bankruptcy. But, stubborn to the core, he refused to admit he was beaten. Earlier this year he had cleared the bankruptcy, launched a new Reform Party, and readied himself for yet another tilt at the Lees and the PAP. But he was finding it harder to walk. His heart was weak, but he was loth to go through the surgery he needed. He soldiered on. The day before his death he was on his feet in court, arguing a case.

Mr Jeyaretnam never made a dent in the PAP’s power. Singaporeans know their government is efficient and clean, and that those who malign its leaders are likely to end up in court. Lee Kuan Yew argues that PAP ministers command respect because they are ready to be scrutinised, and that his libel actions were designed to defend the government’s reputation, not to silence the opposition. Certainly Mr Jeyaretnam, most distinguished of that tiny band, was never silenced. Lee Kuan Yew may have been infinitely the greater statesman, but some would have judged Mr Jeyaretnam the bigger man.