Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, 91, a towering figure of post-colonial Asian politics, died on Monday in hospital.

Mr Lee, who was reportedly on life support, died at the Singapore General Hospital after a seven-week struggle with pneumonia.

Lee’s son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said in a statement he is “deeply grieved”.

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Known as LKY, the former leader was an authoritarian who transformed Singapore from a sleepy British imperial outpost into a global trading and financial centre and dominated the city-state’s politics for half a century.

Mr Lee’s political career spanned 30 years as premier and 20 years as senior government adviser.

US President Barack Obama said after meeting the still healthy Lee at the White House in October 2009 that “this is one of the legendary figures of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries”.

The Cambridge-educated lawyer set Singapore on a path that has raised average incomes a hundred fold, with investments across the globe, a widely respected civil service and world-class infrastructure.

But he was criticised for his iron-fisted rule, forcing several opposition politicians into bankruptcy or exile, and once invoked Machiavelli in declaring: “If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless”.

Lee Kuan Yew first became prime minister after Britain granted Singapore self-rule in 1959 prior to its stormy post-colonial union with Malaysia.

Six years later, he was thrust onto the world stage when he became the leader of a fragile new republic after the largely ethnically Chinese Singapore, with just two million people, was ejected from the Malayan federation.

Under his stewardship, Singapore courted international capital and used foreign labour to plug its manpower gap until it became one of Asia’s wealthiest, safest and most stable societies.

At the height of his powers, a number of opponents went bankrupt or fled into exile after being ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in defamation damages to Lee and members of his inner circle, while alleged radicals were held without charges under internal security laws.

Despite criticism of these methods, Singapore was widely hailed as a model for development during a period when it soared above other former colonies that endured conflict and economic mismanagement.

Lee also launched what critics called a “nanny state” that urged highly educated Singaporeans to intermarry and produce smart babies, banned sales of chewing gum and hectored its public about spitting on the streets and failing to flush public toilets.

In 2011, he stepped down as a cabinet adviser after the ruling People’s Action Party suffered its worst performance yet in a general election, its share of the vote falling to a low of 60 per cent.

He remained revered by many but also became the target of scathing attacks in social media as some Singaporeans began to muster the courage to speak out against him and the political and social model he had bequeathed.

In his last years, he was a shadow of his old self as his health deteriorated following his beloved wife’s death in October 2010.