‘Carrying on a legacy’: WP’s Sylvia Lim remembers her policeman-lawyer father 9 years after his passing

SINGAPORE: Earlier this week, Workers’ Party (WP) chair Sylvia Lim posted a photo of her father, Lim Choon Mong, with then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew from decades ago.

Mr Lim first had a career in law enforcement and then went back to university, becoming a practising lawyer at the age of 39. In a similar fashion, his daughter worked as a police inspector and then as a lawyer.

“Today, 17 Aug 2026, is the 9th anniversary of my late father’s death. Coincidentally, over the past week, this photo (published in 2014 in ST) resurfaced in colour, thanks to a social media page named Heritage SG Memories.  The photograph speaks a thousand words.  #Pioneers,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

According to the caption, Mr Lim was briefing Mr Lee at an army camp when the photo was taken.

In a comment to the post, a netizen wrote, “He left a legacy that you carried on.”

Ms Lim, who has represented Aljunied GRC in Parliament since 2011, has been candid about her relationship with her father in social media posts in the past.

In a Father’s Day post in 2024, she wrote that she and her father had had some “turbulent times.” However, she followed this up with, “but in the later years of his life, we became the best drinking buddies.”

“That’s Family! Happy Father’s Day to all fathers!” the WP chair added.

In another IG post from October 2023, she shared that she had bumped into a secondary school classmate of her father at Blk 58 New Upper Changi Road Market while distributing Hammer, the WP’s newsletter.

They began talking about Ms Lim’s father, and to her surprise, the older man got rather emotional and cried.

She added that the reaction of her father’s former schoolmate touched her, and she hastened to comfort him. 

“I was very moved and told him that there wasn’t any need for tears as he had lived a full life and had obviously impacted others. Today, six years after his death, I still look to my late father for inspiration, especially in difficult moments. #Wisdom #Courage“

In a 2013 AsiaOne interview, Ms Lim, who has been WP chair since 2003, said that her father gave her a political education when he talked about Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his policies around the dinner table. While Ms Lim’s mother, sister, and brother were uninterested, she engaged in discussions with him. /TISG

Read also: Sylvia Lim: We affirm each other as loyal citizens, whatever our political affiliations may be