Emotional scenes as Singapore pays tribute to Lee Kuan Yew

The coffin was taken in a slow motorcade from the Istana, Lee’s workplace for decades as prime minister and cabinet adviser, to the legislature where it will lie in state until the weekend.

The Guard of Honour carry the casket of Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew onto a gun carriage conveying Lee to the Parliament House where his body will be laid in state for public viewing. Handout from Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore/ReutersShow less

SINGAPORE // Singaporeans wept on the streets and queued in the thousands to pay tribute to founding leader Lee Kuan Yew on Wednesday, as his flag-draped 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 in a slow motorcade from the Istana government complex, Lee’s workplace for decades as prime minister and cabinet adviser, to the legislature, where it 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 countries.

The government announced that Parliament House will stay open for 24 hours a day until Saturday night “due to overwhelming response from members of the public”.

Applause and shouts of “We love you!” and “Lee Kuan Yew!” broke out as the coffin, draped in the red-and-white Singapore flag, emerged from the Istana housed in 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 bagpiper from Singapore's Gurkha contingent – the city-state's special guard force – played Auld Lang Syne.

The motorcade made a slow turn in the direction of parliament as a crowd including students in uniform with black arm bands waited behind barricades.

Many along the route were in tears. 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.

By the afternoon, Singaporeans were waiting for up to eight hours in queues that snaked around the central business district, many with umbrellas unfurled in the 33ºC heat.

They came from all walks of life, from office workers and bosses to students and the elderly in wheelchairs accompanied by caregivers.

R Tamilselvi, 77, brought two of her granddaughters, each clutching flowers.

“Lee Kuan Yew has done so much for us,” she said. “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 served as prime minister from 1959 to 1990, leading Singapore to independence in 1965.

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.

He was criticised, however, for ruling the city-state with an iron fist and restricting free speech.

* Agence France-Presse