Quick Take | What Malaysia can learn from the Lee Kuan Yew family feud in Singapore

As the Lee Kuan Yew family feud transfixes Singapore, across the causeway Malaysians are marvelling at the manner in which the Lion City’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has addressed what might appear to some to be a private matter.

Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, is locked in a row with two siblings over the fate of their father’s estate at 38 Oxley Road. Lee Kuan Yew had in his will ordered the bungalow to be demolished, but the prime minister questions the making of the will and wants the government to decide whether the house ought to be preserved. His siblings want it demolished and have accused the prime minister of seeking to use the home as a monument to enhance his political capital – and to use Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy to burnish his son Li Hongyi’s political credentials.

Sons, mothers, money and memory: Theories about the Lee Kuan Yew family feud

The bitter family row broke into the public domain last week, when the siblings released a six-page memo to the media, prompting much national reflection in a land long-used to extreme discretion on behalf of its leading politicians.

What Lee Hsien Loong did next may be one of the most remarkable things in the whole long, sorry saga. On Monday, he apologised to the Singapore publicfor the pain and distress he said the row had caused them. He also said he would grant government MPs a free vote when he gives the issue a full airing in the legislature on July 3.

For Malaysians, Lee Hsien Loong’s openness, for better or worse, serves in stark contrast to how their prime minister, Najib Razak, has handled revelations that implicate him in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) investigation by the US Department of Justice.