Singaporeans say farewell to Lee Kuan Yew

Singaporeans have wept in the streets and gathered in their thousands to pay their respects to the country’s founding leader, Lee Kuan Yew, as his coffin was transported on a gun carriage to parliament for public viewing.
After a two-day private wake for the family, the coffin was taken on Wednesday from the Istana government complex, Lee’s workplace for decades as prime minister and cabinet adviser, to the legislature, where his body will lie in state until the weekend.
The 91-year-old patriarch died on Monday after half a century in government, during which Singapore was transformed from a poor British colonial outpost into one of the world’s richest societies. Lee will be cremated after full state honours on Sunday.
His son, Lee Hsien Loong, the country’s prime minister, said there were “overwhelming queues” outside parliament and that visiting hours had been extended until midnight to cope with the turnout.
Applause and shouts of: “We love you” and: “Lee Kuan Yew” broke out as the dark brown wooden coffin, draped in the red-and-white Singapore flag, emerged from the Istana inside a tempered glass case on a gun carriage pulled by an open-topped military truck.
Earlier, in scenes that evoked Singapore’s colonial past, Lee’s coffin stopped in front of the complex’s main building, where British administrators once worked, as a piper from Singapore’s Gurkha Contingent – the city-state’s special guard force – played Auld Lang Syne.
It was brought down the tree-lined Edinburgh Road to the Istana’s main gate and then made a turn in the direction of parliament as a crowd including students in uniform with black armbands waited behind barricades.
Many along the route were in tears as they raised cameras and mobile phones to record the event. Some threw flowers on the path of the carriage. Office workers watched from the windowMargaret Quek, 49, added: “I don’t mind waiting until nighttime.”
R Tamilselvi, 77, brought two of her granddaughters, each clutching flowers. “Lee Kuan Yew has done so much for us. We used to live in squatter (colonies) in Sembawang, my husband was a bus driver. Now my three sons have good jobs and nice houses. The children all go to school. What will we be without Lee Kuan Yew?”
Lee first became an MP in 1955 and served as prime minister from 1959, when Britain granted self-rule, to 1990. He led Singapore to independence in 1965 after a brief and stormy union with Malaysia.
Singapore now has one of the world’s highest per-capita incomes and its residents enjoy near-universal home ownership, low crime rates and first-class infrastructure.s of high-rise buildings along the route.
Singapore’s president, Tony Tan, and his wife, Mary, were the first to pay their respects after Lee’s closed coffin was placed in the foyer of Parliament House. Local media said Singaporeans began queuing after midnight on Tuesday for a chance to be among the first to pay their respects to the man popularly known by his initials LKY.
Even before the lunch break, the queue was already snaking for up to two kilometres (1.2 miles) as Singaporeans awaited their turn to enter the viewing hall. Many unfurled umbrellas to shield themselves from the scorching sun, with temperatures in the humid tropical island hitting 33C (91F) at midday.
They came from all walks of life, from office workers and managers to students and the elderly in wheelchairs.