Muslimah Halimah Yacob is the new President of Singapore

On 13^th of September, 2017 a Muslim woman took up the President position in Singapore with which she became the first female president in the history of the Asian country.

The 63-years old Halimah Yacob, who is a Muslim and wears headscarf, is a representative of the Malay minority in Singapore. She took up the position automatically after the other two contenders for the president position Salleh Marican and Farid Khan were both denied eligibilityhaving fallen short of a constitutional rule that required any candidate from the private sector to have led a company at least three years with shareholder equity of minimum 500 million Singapore dollars.

In this way the only among the candidates lady was proclaimed President of Singapore actually without elections.

The day of the presidential elections in the Asian country was filled with criticism and dissatisfaction related to the conduction of the elections.

Halimah Yacob will officially take up the position of a President of Singapore on Thursday, 14^th of September this year.

Singapore is an island city-state, which is located in the southeastern part of Asia. The population of the country is about 5 million people, which makes it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. On its territory live representatives of different nationalities, ethnicities and religions. There prevail the Chinese, after them are Malayas, Indians and others. Besides that Singapore is a home of about 10 diffferent religions, nearly 3/5 of the population in the country profess Boudhism, and Muslims are about 15 % of the population, mostly representatives of the Malayan minority in the country.

Author: L. Chausheva

Photo: Gaya Chandramohan