Lee Siew Choh (; 1 November 1917 – 18 July 2002) was a Singaporean politician and physician. A former member of the opposition

Workers' Party Workers' Party is a name used by several political parties throughout the world. The name has been used by both organisations on the left and right of the political spectrum. It is currently used by followers of Marxism, Marxism–Leninism, Maoism ...

(WP), he was the Member of Parliament for Queenstown from 1959 to 1963 and served as the NCMP from September 1988 to August 1991 of the 7th Parliament of Singapore. Initially a member of the

People's Action Party The People's Action Party (PAP) is a major Conservatism, conservative political party in Singapore and is the governing contemporary political party represented in the Parliament of Singapore, followed by the opposition Workers' Party of Singap ...

(PAP), he became a leader of the breakaway faction of

Barisan Sosialis Barisan Sosialis (BS), also known as the Socialist Front, is a defunct left-wing political party in Singapore. It was formed on 29 July 1961 and was officially registered on 13 August 1961 by the leftist faction of the People's Action Party (PA ...

(BS) in 1961. After the BS merged with the

(WP) in 1988, Lee stood as a WP candidate in the 1988 election and became Singapore's first Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) due to his best performance among the opposition candidates. He served as the NCMP from September 1988 to August 1991.

Biography

Lee was born in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

(hitherto located in pre-1974 undivided

Selangor Selangor ( ; ), also known by the Arabic language, Arabic honorific Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity", is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the e ...

state of present-day

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, then the

Federated Malay States The Federated Malay States (FMS, , Jawi script, Jawi: ) was a federation of four protectorate, protected states in the Malay Peninsula — Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang — established in 1895 by the British government, and whi ...

) to Chinese parents of

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

descent and was educated at

Victoria Institution The Victoria Institution is the oldest secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is a memorial school, so-called because it was partly funded by public subscription intended for the erection of a permanent memorial to commemorate the Golden ...

, the city's premier school. He came to Singapore in 1934 and was trained as a medical doctor at King Edward VII College of Medicine (now the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

's Medical Faculty). After graduating in 1942, he joined Kandang Kerbau Hospital as a doctor. He then married a volunteer nurse, Kathleen Fam Yin Oi (1919 –⁠ 20 April 2017) who was also the elder sister of Michael Fam, a fellow Singaporean Chinese of

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

descent and

Malaysian Chinese Malaysian Chinese, Chinese Malaysians, or Sino-Malaysians are Malaysians, Malaysian citizens of Chinese people, Chinese ethnicity. They form the second-largest ethnic group in Malaysia, after the Malaysian Malays, Malay majority, and , const ...

ancestry hailing from the town of

Sandakan Sandakan () formerly known at various times as Elopura, is the capital of the Sandakan District in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second largest city in Sabah after Kota Kinabalu. It is located on the Sandakan Peninsula and east coast of the sta ...

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

, Malaysia located in

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

island in 1943 during the

Japanese occupation of Singapore , officially , was the name for Colony of Singapore, Singapore when it was occupied and ruled by the Empire of Japan, following the fall and surrender of British military forces on 15 February 1942 during World War II. The Japanese military ...

, he was later sent to work as a medical officer at the Thai-Burmese border for two years, where the

Death Railway The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 b ...

was constructed.

Political career

Lee served in Singapore's Legislative Assembly as a representative of the PAP following the 1959 election. In 1960 he served as the Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs. In 1961, Lee and 13 other members of the assembly broke away from the PAP and formed the Socialist Front. Lee was noted for his pro-

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

stance and oratory skills. In 1961, he made the longest speech in the history of Singapore's Legislative Assembly which lasted seven hours on the subject of Singapore's proposed merger with Malaya. Lee led the party in the 1963 elections, in which they won 13 of the 51 seats. In 1988, Socialist Front merged with the

and Lee stood as a Workers' Party candidate in the Eunos Group Representation Constituency at the 1988 Singaporean general election, along with Francis Seow and Mohd Khalit bin Mohd Baboo. They lost to the PAP's team in the constituency by 49.1% of the votes to 50.9%. As the Workers' Party's team in Eunos had garnered a higher percentage of the vote than any other opposition losing candidates, the party was eligible to nominate two members of its team from Eunos to become Non-constituency MPs. The party had refused to nominate NCMPs in the past, but this time they nominated Lee and Seow to become NCMPs. Seow was subsequently accused of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

and fled to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

before he could take up his NCMP seat. Lee became Singapore's first-ever NCMP, serving until the 1991 general election. In Parliament, he raised several issues, including the Internal Security Act, living costs and welfare. Lee again stood in Eunos GRC at the 1991 Singaporean general election. He and fellow party members Jufrie Mahmood, Neo Choon Aik and Wee Han Kim again lost narrowly to the PAP's team by 47.6% of the votes to 52.4%. However no NCMP seats were offered following that election as the opposition parties won a combined total of four elected seats. Lee left the Workers' Party in 1996, citing differences with the party's leader, Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam.

Personal life

Lee married Kathleen Fam and had three sons, Victor Lee Yew Kwong, Peter Lee Yew Chung and David Lee Yew Keong, and a daughter, Lee Yu Lian. His eldest son, Victor Lee Yew Kwong, died in 1992. Lee died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

on 18 July 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Siew-Choh People from Selangor Members of the Parliament of Singapore Singaporean people of Chinese descent Singaporean Non-constituency Members of Parliament Workers' Party (Singapore) politicians Barisan Sosialis politicians People from Kuala Lumpur People's Action Party politicians Singaporean people of Cantonese descent Malaysian emigrants to Singapore People who lost Malaysian citizenship Naturalised citizens of Singapore 1917 births Malaysian people of Chinese descent 2002 deaths 20th-century Singaporean physicians Malaysian people of Cantonese descent

Biography

Political career

Personal life

See also

References