Halimah Yacob

Halimah Yacob (born 23 August 1954) is a Singaporean former politician and lawyer who served as the eighth president of Singapore from 2017 to 2023. The Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) announced the appointment of former president Halimah Yacob as its new chancellor from 1 October 2023. A former member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), she was the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Bukit Batok East division of Jurong GRC between 2001 and 2015, and the Marsiling division of Marsiling–Yew Tee GRC between 2015 and 2017. After a constitutional amendment made in 2017, the 2017 presidential election was specifically reserved for candidates from the Malay community. Halimah resigned from the PAP and became an independent—one of the qualifications needed to run for the presidency—and ran for the 2017 presidential election which she won in an uncontested election, after the other presidential hopefuls except for her did not meet the qualifications. Prior to her presidency, she served as Speaker of Parliament between 2013 and 2017. She is the first female speaker and president in Singapore's history. She is one of the living former presidents of Singapore. During her presidency, Halimah exercised presidential discretionary powers to approve emergency funding for Singapore's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also spoke in support of women's rights. She did not seek for a re-election in the 2023 presidential election. Her term ended & had officially retired on 13 September 2023. She was succeeded by Tharman Shanmugaratnam on the following day.