Discontent At Lee’s Policies

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31645, 3 April 1968, Page 7

Discontent At Lee’s Policies

(from DAVID EXEL, N.Z.P.A. special correspondent) SINGAPORE, April 1. The cancellation of “Operation Swop” the proposed forced exchange of about 100.000 workers between Singapore and Malaysia was announced last week-end. The idea, as developed by Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s Government in Singapore, was to repatriate to Malaysia 50,000 Malaysian citizens employed tn Singapore. The Government reasoned that this would assist in providing job opportunities for Singapore's unemployed and would cushion the economic effects of the British withdrawal. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately for the thousands affected by the somewhat ruthless decision—Malaysia decided that two could play at the same game and promised to repatriate, person for person, Singapore citizens employed in Malaysia. It was. Tunku Abdul Rahman was careful to explain, a hateful decision we have been forced to make.”

Singapore might still have eome out numerically on top

in the uprooting of long-resi-dent families on each side of the causeway. In spite of Malaysian claims that 60,000 Singapore citizens worked in Malaysia, Singapore officials estimated the number as less than 20,000.

The plan was stopped, days away from being put into effect, by an almost unpiecedented display of opposition by commercial and industrial leaders on both sides of the causeway and even by the usually-timid newspapers. Singapore's Dr Goh Keng- Swee, after a round of golf with Malaysia’s Tun Abdul Razak, yesterday announced that the plan had been pigeon-holed a few days before. Several hun dred Malaysians had already had their work permits cancelled, but no exchange had actually taken place. The cancellation of the in-adequately-labelled “Operation Swop” is seen by many as an unusual admission of the fallibility of the Singapore Government. It spotlights a growing disillusionment. not only among Singapore's intellectuals, but among foreign observer# as well, with the intelligent, energetic and often charming Lee Kuan Yew. It would be exaggerating to talks of a groundswell of discontent in Singapore, but the days could well be passing when Mr Lee’s leadership goes unchallenged by all but ineffectual liberals and a hardcore dissident minority of Chinese. Every Singapore policy is unfailingly—and perhaps not always fairly—associated with the name of the island’s Prime Minister. The miscal-

culating ruthlessness which gave rise to the plans for “Operation Swop” has given fuel to Mr Lee’s detractors. His critics see his over-all political performance as marred by what they believe is a chronic under-estimation of, in particular, the political shrewdness of Tunku Abdul Rahman. In the last few days they have been adding up the points against the man whose energy and capacity for leadership almost the whole world admires. It was Mr Lee, his critics say, whose unsubtle political appeal to Chinese throughout Malaysia decided Tunku Abdul Rahman to expel the island from the federation. Mr Lee’s blunt press conferences, on the desperate need for security rasp on Indonesian suspicions. His determination to prepare a second-line leadership drew complaints from academicians of political meddling in university affairs. Mr Lee’s much-publicised trip to London, seeking a reprieve from Britain’s troop withdrawal decision, has been criticised, privately but hotly, as unrealistic and, some think, un-Asian. Perhaps most important, it was largely unsuccessful. It is Mr Lee who, many Singaporeans feel, is the

greatest stumbling-block to any meaningful rapprochement with Malaysia. Mr' Lee, still young, still intellectually able and politically agile, has been “Mr Singapore” for several years. His position is not likely to be seriously challenged for a number of years to come. Most observers believe that Mr Lee saved Singapore from a Communist-led take-over in the early 19605. But while his qualities are still admired from the sidelines, a few are wondering if he will develop into a net liability. Mr Lee’s fate is to be continually compared with Tunku Abdul Rahman. It is a public habit—usually privately expressed—which has not been changed by the separation of the two States. The Singapore Prime Minister, on almost any sum-ming-up, emerges as the man with more acute intelligence, greater drive. “Some people,” said the Tunku this week, “think l’m an old fool. They say I’ve got nothing but intuition. But the thing is, you know, my intuition has never been wrong." Occasionally and sometimes on major issues— Singapore citizens wish their Prime Minister could borrow some of the Tunku's intuition.