The first female President of Singapore has been elected without people casting a single vote.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
Singapore's
President-elect Halimah Yacob and her husband Mohammed Abdullah
Alhabshee address supporters before leaving the nomination centre in
Singapore September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su
Halimah Yacob, a former speaker of parliament, was declared elected
as Singapore’s first woman president on Wednesday, after the returning
officer announced she was the sole candidate to qualify for the contest.
Aiming to strengthen a sense of inclusivity in the multicultural
city-state, Singapore had decreed the presidency, a largely ceremonial
post, would be reserved for candidates from the minority Malay community
this time.
“Although this is a reserved election, I‘m not a reserved president,” Halimah said in a speech at the elections department office. “I‘m a president for everyone.”
Halimah’s experience as house speaker automatically qualified her under the nomination rules.
Of the four other applicants, two were not Malays and two were not
given certificates of eligibility, the elections department said earlier
this week.
The last Malay to hold the presidency was Yusof Ishak, whose image adorns the country’s banknotes.
Yusof was president between 1965 and 1970, the first years of
Singapore’s independence following a short-lived union with neighboring
Malaysia, but executive power lay with Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s first
prime minister.
The separation of Singapore from Malaysia gave ethnic Malays a
clear majority in Malaysia, while ethnic Chinese formed the majority in
independent Singapore.
Reuters - (Reporting by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan & Simon Cameron-Moore.)
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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