Sixty years ago yesterday, 5 June 1959, the first cabinet after Singapore gained self-governing status was sworn in at City Hall.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his eight Ministers took their oaths of office wearing simple white shirts and trousers, no suits and ties. The former Governor and newly appointed Yang di Pertuan Negara, William Goode, officiated in a fawn-coloured suit, not the regalia of empire.
It was a signal that the times had changed. As Mr Lee declared at a huge rally at the Padang on 3 June, two nights earlier:
“Once in a long while in the history of a people, there comes a moment of great change. Tonight is such a moment in our lives ... We begin a new chapter in the history of Singapore.”
Governing would not be plain sailing. Mr Lee’s core team – which included Dr Goh Keng Swee, Dr Toh Chin Chye, Mr S Rajaratnam and Mr Ong Pang Boon – held, but the PAP was nearly defeated and perhaps even extinguished in the harsh and bitter struggles that followed.
First came the life-and-death battle against the communists and their supporters. Mr Lee had insisted that the British release eight left-wing detainees from Changi Prison before he would take office. Two years later, all but one of them split from the PAP to form the Barisan Sosialis.
After the Barisan lost the September 1962 Referendum and the General Election in 1963, we spent two years in Malaysia. Mr Lee and his key colleagues fought tenaciously for a multi-racial society, risking arrest or worse.
If Singaporeans of that generation – the Pioneer and Merdeka Generations – had not united behind the PAP’s leadership, Tunku Abdul Rahman would never have let Singapore leave Malaysia to become a sovereign independent country.
5 June 1959 was one of the milestones that made possible 9 August 1965, and all that followed over the next 54 years. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to this pride of lions who took office 60 years ago, and to the people they led.
Yesterday was Hari Raya Puasa, so this week’s Cabinet meeting was postponed till today. Today, we took a photograph of the 14th Cabinet before our meeting started (minus a few members who were overseas or not able to be there – Desmond Lee, Grace Fu, Iswaran, Maliki, and Ong Ye Kung) to mark the 60th anniversary of the historic swearing in of the first Cabinet.
As I told my colleagues, the fight continues. The dream of an ever better Singapore is alive and well. Our pledge to be one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, endures. – LHL
([Top] Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore / [Bottom] MCI Photo by Betty Chua)
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