to be honest, LKY did what he had to do during those troubling times. He had to rule with an iron fist as people are not educated enough to make the right decision. However, as the education level increase, people are able to think and make comparison thus the same method cannot be cloned and used on the current generation of singaporeans by LHL. honestly, he didnt make any breakthrough and only remains in his father's shadow.
A good example is this, 20-30 years ago, parents always tell their children that the apunehneh/policeman will catch them or beat up their child jialat jialat. Now? the kids knows that you are just giving empty threats and they will call the police to complain child abuse.
LKY didn't have a planned life. He fought everything with tears and sweat. He walked the ground personally and talk to his people personally.
LHL is different, he may be higher educated then LHL, but all his so called successes were pre planned. It is unrealistic that a peson could be promoted to the rank of BG in just 13 years, and a further 6 years to be the deputy prime Minister (after GCT became the PM), in which after being elected Teck Ghee MP, he was already a full fledged minister.
LKY actively led singapore to independence, he had to fought his was between a Malaysia Malaysian or a Malays only society during the Malaya-singapore independence, he had to fight for independence from the UK as well.
This cannot be learnt just by sitting at a desk and promotion just come literally to him. He didn't walk the ground, he didn't understood the people well enough, he didn't understood changes. All these LKY had done it umpteen times, and with precision.
I had not once doubted LKY and wasn't surprised he could make friends with former U.S. president Bill Clinton, US state secretary Kissinger, or even late UK PM, Margaret Thatcher. He studied not just to study, he had made use of his law knowledge to enable him to sign lots of treaties benefitting Singaporeans.
If you look at how LKY ensured Singaporeans had water supply, and he specifically included the clause for Malaysians to provide us with water for the next 50 years ending 2011 even after separation.
While what did LHL did? His law knowledge was used on signing lousy treaties with India (more notably the ****) just to squeeze singaporeans out.
In short, LKY walk the walk and talk the talk, LHL did none of those.
