COMMENT Lee Hsien Loong in his first national day speech in 2004 as prime minister invoked Chairman Mao’s “let the hundred flowers bloom”.
He added: “… we are going to do is to open up the Speakers’ Corner where you can go and make any speech you like and we are going to say, ‘Well, if you want to go there and have an exhibition, go ahead.”
And now, less than a decade after his speech, not just a 100 flowers have blossomed, cyberspace and Hong Lim Park have merged into one gigantic political force never seen before in Singapore’s history. This certainly was not what he anticipated.