Lee Kuan Yew
It’s heartening to see that Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, at 87, is still prepared to contest the next general election if his health permits and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, asks him to. It would have been sad if he had lost his zest for public affairs following the death of his wife last month.
Britain has no parliamentarian as old as he – the oldest, Conservative MP Sir Peter Tapsell, who was first elected to the House of Commons in 1959, is 80 .
But there are three American senators only four months to a year younger than Lee Kuan Yew and a Texan in the House of Representatives who is even older than him.
All the three senators happen to be Democrats.
They are Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who was born on September 7, 1924, who was elected to the Senate in 1962, Senator Daniel Akaka, also of Hawaii, who was born on September 11, 1924, and elected to the Senate in 1990, and Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, who was born on January 23, 1924 and elected in December 1982.
There is a Texan in the House of Representatives who is even four months older than Lee. Ralph Hall, a Republican who represents Texas’ Fourth Congressional District, was born on May 3, 1923, and first elected in 1980.
Lee Kuan Yew, born on September 16, 1923, has been a lawmaker much longer. He was first elected from Tanjong Pagar in 1955, served as prime minister from June 1959 till November 1990, and won about 80 per cent of the valid votes cast the last time he faced an opponent, in 1988, recalls Channel NewsAsia.
India has parliamentarians older than Lee.
Ram Sunder Das, a former Congressman who was chief minister of the eastern Indian state of Bihar from April 1979 till February 1980, was elected to the Lok Sabha – the powerful Lower House of Parliament – for the first time in 1991 and re-elected for a second term in 2009 on the Janata Dal ticket. Born on January 9, 1921, he is now 89.
The oldest Indian parliamentarian is Rishang Keishing, a former chief minister of the northeastern state of Manipur and a member of the ruling Congress party. Born on October 25, 1920, he is now 90 and serving his second term as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament.
One American senator served till the ripe old age of 100. Strom Thurmond was still in office, as a Republican senator from South Carolina, when he died in 2003.
The oldest American senator after him was Robert Byrd, Democrat, of West Virginia, who died at 92 in June this year.
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It will be good for him to contest the coming election, Singaporeans have supported him for the past five decades and that shows that LKY has been a very well liked leader. His dedication to the state is clear for the world to see as he has affirmed that he will rise from his grave should anything goes wrong with Sin. The voters at Tanjong Pagar may also miss his good cares, so why not let some of our fellow Singaporeans continue to be under the tender loving cares of their Parliamentary Representative LKY?
sayang