Teo Chee Hean should focus on more important things, instead of a family dispute: Filmmaker

SINGAPORE: Award-winning filmmaker Lynn Lee has asserted that Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean should focus his attention on more important things, instead of getting involved in what is essentially a family dispute.

Her comments come after Mr Teo announced in a parliamentary reply that the police are investigating Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s estranged brother Lee Hsien Yang and his wife Lee Suet Fern for allegedly lying under oath about their father Lee Kuan Yew’s last will.

Mr Teo Chee Hean had also slammed an e-book on the last will, written by noted author Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh. Mr Vadaketh has fiercely defended his book and has claimed that it was ruling party politicians themselves who asked him to write the book, out of concern that the Lee family feud will harm the People’s Action Party (PAP).

Echoing the views of a large group of Singaporeans online, Ms Lynn Lee said yesterday (3 Mar) that the Senior Minister should reconsider his priorities. Calling Mr Teo’s recent remarks “alarming,” she said on Facebook: “Teo Chee Hean’s recent statement is alarming, not because he comes across as somewhat hysterical, but because it is an indication of where the government’s priorities lie.”

Calling the ongoing family feud “drama,” the illustrious documentary filmmaker said: “Many of us want authorities to do more to investigate corruption at Keppel. We want answers to questions about SPH’s fake circulation numbers. We want to know what our leaders are doing about rising inflation. We want to not be gaslit, talked down to, sneered at when we worry about skyrocketing property prices.

“The last thing we want is to have to pay any more attention to the Oxley feud – if Lee Hsien Loong had challenged his father’s will before it was granted probate, we might have all been spared this drama.”

She added, “The central question though, isn’t why he didn’t do so, but why the PAP government seems so obsessed with shaping public opinion around what is essentially, a family dispute.”

Mr Teo’s parliamentary reply represents, for many, an escalation of the bitter dispute between the Lee brothers that has gripped the nation since 2017.

Mr Lee Hsien Yang has dubbed the latest action against his family as continued “persecution.” He has also revealed that he and his wife are living in Europe in what is being called “self-imposed exile” by the media.

The 65-year-old told Bloomberg that he is unsure whether they will return to Singapore “in the foreseeable future” with the ongoing police probe. He also teased that he may apply to contest the Presidential election that is set to take place later this year, to challenge his elder brother’s party. /TISG