Jeyaretnam on Tuesday challenged Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to a public debate over his remarks castigating those who say they would abandon the city-state for a better life abroad.

Jeyaretnam, who has been eased out of Parliament and barred from political office after being declared bankrupt, claimed that Singaporeans are losing hope not in themselves or their country but in the government "I can well understand your chagrin over Singaporeans' losing confidence in the future of their country," he said in an open letter to the prime minister sent to news agencies.

"But ... if you were honest with yourself, you should be the first to admit that it is not confidence in themselves or in their country that the people are losing. They are losing confidence in your government," he said.

There was no immediate reaction from the prime minister's office.

In a wide-ranging speech to the country late Sunday, Goh slammed what he described as "fair-weather Singaporeans" or people who he said would choose to run away from Singapore in difficult times without a sense of belonging to the wealthy island-republic.

"I call them quitters," Goh said.

Goh also challenged young Singaporeans, who unlike their forebears were raised after the country become prosperous, to reflect and ask themselves if they belonged to that category.

Jeyaretnam, whose bankruptcy was the result of a lawsuit filed by members of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) he had defamed, claimed people were losing confidence because government did not listen to them.

"If you are really serious about your statement that the government listens, will you listen to this appeal. would you agree to an open debate on why the people are losing their confidence in the government," he wrote.

"Don't dismiss my appeal as a cheap jibe on my part to gain publicity," said Jeyaretnam, a lawyer who became the first opposition politician to break the PAP's dominance of Parliament.

"I am concerned, just as you are, about the country's future and I am not one who has quit," he said.