Indian-origin Tharman Shanmugaratnam, former member of Singapore’s ruling occasion, has sweeped the presidential election by securing 70.4 per cent of the vote on Saturday.
Tharman, 66, is about to be the ninth president of Singapore and the third Indian-origin individual to go the city-state. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Tharman over his election win.
Whereas speaking to the media after his win, he mentioned his victory was a vote of confidence in Singapore’s future.
Tharman had launched his presidential marketing campaign with the slogan “Respect for All”. He’s the primary non-Chinese language presidential candidate to win the election in a predominantly Chinese language metropolis state. He was up towards Chinese language origin Ng Kok Track and Tan Kin Lian.
Incumbent President Halimah Yacob’s six-year time period will finish on September 13. The elected president serves a six-year time period.
Who’s he
Born on February 25, 1957, in Singapore, Tharman is a multi-generational Singaporean of Tamil ancestry from the nineteenth century. Shanmugaratnam, served as Singapore’s deputy prime minister between 2011 and 2019.
An economist by career, Tharman was a senior minister within the Cupboard between 2019 and 2023.
He served as schooling minister between 2003 and 2008. He was additionally finance minister between 2007 and 2015, human sources minister between 2011 and 2012, and social insurance policies minister between 2015 and 2023.
He made his political debut within the 2001 common election, and was re-elected to Parliament 4 instances at subsequent common elections in 2006, 2011, 2015 and 2020.
He chaired the Worldwide Financial and Monetary Committee from 2011 to 2014. Tharman was the primary Asian to chair the advisory committee of the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF).
Graduated from the London Faculty of Economics, he accomplished his Grasp of Philosophy diploma in economics at Wolfson School, College of Cambridge.
Tharman is the son of Emeritus Professor Okay. Shanmugaratnam, a medical scientist referred to as the “father of pathology in Singapore”, who based the Singapore Most cancers Registry and led a lot of worldwide organisations associated to most cancers analysis and pathology.
He’s married to Jane Yumiko Ittogi, a Singaporean lawyer of combined Chinese language-Japanese ancestry, who’s actively engaged in social enterprise and the non-profit arts sector in Singapore. The couple have one daughter and three sons.
Tharman was a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Taman Jurong division of Jurong GRC between 2001 and 2023 as a member of Folks’s Motion Get together (PAP).
Tharman has additionally served in Non-Governmental Organisations and chaired the Board of Trustees of the Singapore Indian Improvement Affiliation (SINDA). He additionally chaired the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Management Institute and the Nationwide Jobs Council geared toward rebuilding expertise and jobs for Singaporeans within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 1992, Tharman was charged underneath the Official Secrets and techniques Act (OSA) in a case involving the publication of Singapore’s 1992 second-quarter flash GDP progress projections in a neighborhood newspaper. At the moment he was the director of the Financial Division of the MAS. Later he was acquitted within the case.
