Jeyaretnam describes the republic's dramatic economic success as a "fairy tale."

Once voters realise this, he says, the authoritarian People's Action Party (PAP) which has ruled since 1959 will finally face a significant opposition voice in parliament.

"I have great hopes of a significant breakthrough in the next election," Jeyaretnam, who heads the Workers' Party, told AFP during a weekend visit to Malaysia to launch his book.

"I see changes coming in Singapore and that's why I have not given up hope yet. It is not easy with opposition parties being manacled in Singapore but it will come."

The 74-year-old, one of the three opposition MPs in the 93-seat parliament, says there is growing dissatisfaction with the PAP amid a widening income gap.

"It's a fairy tale about Singapore being an economic success. Of course the GDP growth figures are high but has it trickled down to make life better or has it been siphoned into the hands of a minority?" he says.

Government statistics show that during the 1998-99 recession, wages for low-skilled workers fell from S$746 (US$431 US) a month in 1998 to S$492 in 1999.

In the same period the average household income for the top 10 percent rose from $15,053 dollars to $15,541 dollars a month. Singapore regards $1000 dollars a month for a family of four as the poverty line.

"Singaporeans must learn to show their disgust against the widening disparity and complete neglect of the have-nots, through the ballot box," Jeyaretnam says.

He says Indonesian president Suharto's resignation after 32 years in power will embolden Singaporeans who live in the "grip of fear."

"Singaporeans must learn that governments are servants of the people," he says.

Jeyaretnam calls former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who stepped down in 1991 and is now a senior minister, a "big nanny" still watching over the cabinet.

Without Lee, "perhaps the ministers will come into their own then" and the political landscape will be different, he said.

Jeyaratnam, born in Jaffna in what was then Ceylon and trained in Britain as a lawyer, became the first opposition member of parliament for more than a decade when he defeated a PAP candidate in a by-election in 1981.

But his political path has been strewn with obstacles.

In 1986 he was jailed for three months for making a false declaration of his party's accounts and fined a sum which led to his expulsion from parliament and a ban on legal practice.

He was barred for standing for parliament until November 1991 even though the Privy Council in Britain ruled in 1988 that the court decision was "a grievous injustice."

Jeyaretnam failed in his bid for an elected seat in the 1997 polls but became an MP on the strength of a law allowing the best-performing losing party to nominate a representative in parliament.

He has also lost defamation suits filed by PAP leaders but a court in May overruled a bankruptcy order against him, allowing him to remain an MP.

Jeyaretnam says he has no plans to retire until there are at least 10 opposition MPs to fight for a "fairer society where everyone has equal opportunity."

He attributes his political drive to his "great conviction as a Christian to serve the people."

Although entering politics has made him poor, he says he has been rewarded by the "esteem I have met everywhere I go in Singapore."

His book, Make it right for Singapore" is a collection of his speeches in parliament from 1997 to 1999 on issues such as press freedom, the role of the judiciary, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.