SINGAPORE (AP) – Singapore mourned longtime leader Lee Kuan Yew with raw emotion and a blanket of relentlessly positive coverage on its tightly scripted state television on Monday, mythologizing a man who was as respected as he was feared.
The government announced that Lee, 91, “passed away peacefully” several hours before dawn at Singapore General Hospital. The increasingly frail elder statesman was hospitalized in early February with severe pneumonia.
State television broke away from its regular programming with a rolling hagiographic tribute to Lee’s life and achievements. In a live broadcast, one of its reporters called the death the “awful and dreaded” news. Effusive tributes flowed in from world leaders, including President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A self-proclaimed authoritarian who saw the world in stark realist terms, Lee commanded respect from Singaporeans, who this year will celebrate the country’s 50th anniversary of independence. He led multiracial Singapore with an iron grip for more than three decades until 1990, and is credited with transforming the resource-poor island into a wealthy finance and trade entrepot with low crime and little corruption.
Singapore’s government has declared seven days of national mourning, and flags will fly at half-staff on state buildings. A national holiday has not been declared, as daily life in this pragmatically commercial city of vaulting glass towers and broad, immaculate streets continues to bustle.