"No, I'm not giving up," the 76-year-old lawyer said, a month after he was stricken off the rolls of parliament following a final ruling by the Court of Appeal declaring him a bankrupt.

The ruling also disqualifies him from standing in elections unless he pays off all his debts to people he was ruled to have defamed. PAP leaders have filed a barrage of lawsuits against him through his career.

Jeyaretnam said he would like to stand again in the general election to be called by August 2002 and was trying to pay off his debt so that his bankruptcy could be annulled.

"I don't give up easily... but whether I succeed or not is perhaps in God's hands," he told reporters at a news briefing in his small, rundown office in Singapore's business district.

"I intend to go on. I'm not a quitter and I think that's something Lee recognises," he said, referring to his political nemesis, senior minister and modern Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew.

In an interview published on the party's website, Lee acknowledged younger voters wanted a stronger opposition to check unspecified "excesses" by the Younger Singaporeans know they need the PAP "to be able to stand up for Singapore's position both internationally and to govern the country internally", Lee said.

However, he admitted that "there is probably a growing desire to have some opposition to pressure the party to make concessions and so on, and to act as a brake on party excesses".

At the same time Lee criticised opposition legislators who "raise the same old issues without any substance".

Jeyaretnam has been subject to lawsuits, fines and jail throughout his political career and is estimated to have paid more than S$1.6 million (US$914,000) in damages and costs so far.

He has been a thorn in the side of the PAP since 1981 when he broke the ruling party's 16-year monopoly of parliament to become a lawmaker.

The gruff but powerful speaker has championed greater political freedoms and human rights in the strictly governed and wealthy city-state.

Jeyaretnam was declared bankrupt after being one day late with an instalment under a deal to pay off S$265,000 in damages to ruling-party politicians who had filed a defamation suit.

He still has to pay S$175,000 in outstanding debt. His removal from the current parliament reduces the opposition MPs to just two with 89 MPs from the PAP and two seats vacant.

Jeyaretnam remains chairman of the Open Singapore Centre, a group promoting greater political openness, and a member of the Workers' Party after relinquishing the chairmanship earlier this year.

Jeyaretnam recalled a previous disqualification from parliament in 1984 after being convicted on criminal charges concerning alleged irregularities in the collection of party funds.

He appealed to the Privy Council in London, then Singapore's court of final appeal, which ruled in his favour. The government has passed an Amendment Act that abolished appeals to the Privy Council for disciplinary matters.

"I haven't said goodbye yet," Jeyaretnam said.

And recalling a recent editorial by the Asian Wall Street Journal about his legacy, he quipped: "I have not written my will yet. It's when I write my will then let's see what the legacy is."