Challenge to Lee

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 19

Challenge to Lee

(N.Z.P A.-Reuter —Copyright) SINGAPORE, Mar. 26. An English - educated Chinese solicitor has announced the formation of a new political party to challenge the present one-party rule of the Prime Minister of Singapore (Mr Lee). Mr Lui Boon Poh said that the People’s Front would strive for a genuine and fully independent Democratic Socialist republic, the unconditional admission of China to the United Nations, and withdrawal from the fivePower defence arrangements between Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, Australia And New Zealand. Mr Lui, who said that Mr Lee and his People's Party (P.A.P.) had deviated from its original Socialist platform, alleged political repression by the present Government, which holds all 58 seats in Parliament. The party had applied for registration, Mr Lui said, and if this were not granted before the next General Election, due in 1973, People’s Front candidates would stand as Independents. The political secretary of the new party is Mr Leon Mun Kwai, a member of the P.A.P. until last Friday and the author of a book entitled “Death and Protest,” which is highly critical of certain aspects of the P.A.P. Fourteen political parties are registered in Singapore, although only two, apart from the P.A.P., are active. These are the left-of-centre United National Front, which unsuccessfully contested two seats in by-elections in 1969, and the Peking-aligned Barisan Socialist Party.