A 63 year old woman, Halimah Yacob has been declared Singapore’s eighth
president on Wednesday after a “walkover” election that saw no vote
after no other contenders ran for the position.
Yacob, had been
the only candidate deemed eligible to stand in the country’s Elections
Department, having held a key public position as speaker of parliament
for three years.
The other two contenders, Salleh Marican and
Farid Khan, were both denied eligibility, having fallen short of a
constitutional rule that required any candidate from the private sector
to have led a company with shareholder equity of at least 500 million
Singapore dollars (372 million dollars).
Following the
announcement, Yacob thanked her supporters in a speech, calling it a “a
proud moment for Singapore, for multiculturalism and multi-racialism.”
Yacob is Singapore’s first Malay president in 47 years and the first woman to occupy the president’s office.