Halimah Yacob Becomes Singapore First Female President Without A Vote

The first female President of Singapore has been elected without a single citizen casting a single vote. 

Halimah Yacob, who is a former speaker of parliament, was declared elected as Singapore’s first woman president on Wednesday.

This was after the returning officer announced was the sole candidate to qualify for the contest.

“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.

It was reported that 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.