Voters in Singapore responded with anger after electoral officials effectively decided on the future head of state. With all other candidates eliminated, Halimah Yacob will become the first female president.
Yacob (center) pledged to do her best to 'serve the people of Singapore'Image: Reuters/E. Su
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Singapore authorities are expected to cancel the presidential vote and name Yacob president-elect as soon as the deadline for nominations expires on Wednesday.
"Whether there is an election or not, my passion and commitment to serve the people of Singapore remain the same," Yacob told reporters earlier this week.
Where women rule the country
There are 195 independent states in the world — and the vast majority are ruled by men. Female heads of government or state are rare, but those in power are strong leaders. DW takes a look at some powerful politicians.
Image: Reuters/Lehtikuva/V. Moilanen
Sanna Marin
The 34-year-old Sanna Marin was elected by her party in December 2019 to serve as Finland's prime minister after Antti Rinne resigned over fallout from a postal strike. Once she is sworn in, set for mid-December, she will become one of the world's youngest head's of states. She previously served as her country's transport minister.
Image: Reuters/Lehtikuva/V. Moilanen
Jacinda Arden
Since October 2017, Jacinda Arden has served as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand. She took office at the age of 37. She is also only the second woman to give birth while in office. Arden is regarded as one of the world's most powerful women and was praised internationally for her response to the Christchurch terror attacks in 2019.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/S. Keith
Jeanine Anez
After Evo Morales resigned as Bolivia's president in November 2019, the 52-year-old Jeanine Anez became the interim leader of the country. Previously a vice president of the Senate, she has said she would like to try to schedule fresh elections as soon as possible. She is politically right-wing.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/J. Karita
Sophie Wilmes
After serving as Belgium's budget minister, Sohpie Wilmes became the country's prime minister — and its first female one — in late October 2019. The 44-year-old has a tough task before her: scraping together a majority from a highly fragmented national parliament. She belongs to the French-speaking liberal-centrist MR party.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Belga/V. Lefour
Zuzana Caputova
Slovakia elected Zuzana Caputova as its first female president in March 2019. She took office in June, also becoming the youngest-ever president at age 45. Her political views are marked by her strong environmentalism and her determination to weed out corruption in the central European state. Prior to becoming president, she had not held an elected political office.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D. Gluck
Angela Merkel
The 65-year-old was appointed chancellor in 2005 — the country's first female head of government — and is currently serving her fourth term as Germany's leader. The pastor's daughter from communist East Germany and chemistry doctorate was named "Person of the Year 2015" by Time magazine. Her term is scheduled to end in 2021, and she has said she will not pursue the chancellor position again.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/O.Hoslet
Sahle-Work Zewde
The 69-yeaer-old Sahle-Work Zewde was elected unanimously by the members of Ethiopia's parliament to serve as the country's 5th president. She is the first woman to fill the role, though the role is largely ceremonial. However, as of 2019, she is Africa's only serving head of state. A career diplomat, she had previously held various high-level positions in the UN.
Image: Reuters/C. Allegri
Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai Ing-Wen is the first woman to serve as president of the Republic of China, more commonly known as Taiwan. Her inauguration in May 2016 led Beijing to freeze official relations with the small island, which the mainland claims can never be independent. Tsai has made it clear she will not "bow to pressure" over the issue of sovereignty. She has announced she will run for reelection in 2020.
Image: Reuters/T. Siu
Erna Solberg
Norway, too, is governed by a woman. Erna Solberg took office in 2013. The 58-year-old is the wealthy northern country's second female prime minister, after Gro Harlem Brundtland, who held the position in the 80s and 90s. Her tough asylum policies earned her the nickname "Iron Erna." She also heads up Norway's Conservative Party.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/V. Wivestad Groett
Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila
The 52-year-old, Namibia's fourth prime minister, has been in office since 2015. Kuugongelwa-Amadhila went into exile in Sierra Leone as a young teenager. She pursued higher education in the US, graduating with a degree in economics before returning home in 1994, where she began working in politics. She is the first woman to head Namibia's government and a strong proponent of women's rights.
Image: Imago/X. Afrika
Sheikh Hasina
Sheikh Hasina is the 10th and longest serving prime minister in the history of Bangladesh. Before her current term, which began in 2009, she also held the office from 1996-2001. Forbes business magazine listed the 72-year-old on its list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Bildfunk
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
The 51-year-old held several government positions and represented Croatia as ambassador to the United States before she was elected in 2015 as the country's first woman president, and its youngest. Grabar-Kitarovic's position from 2011 to 2014 as assistant secretary general for public diplomacy at NATO makes her the highest-ranking female ever within NATO's administrative team.
Image: Reuters/D. Sagolj
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A president plays a largely ceremonial role in the rich island state. Yacob is expected to take her oath of office on Thursday, serving as the first female president of Singapore for the next six years, reported the Singapore-based Straits Times.
Authorities originally scheduled a presidential vote for September 23, with five people attempting to run. However, the candidates needed to comply with new rules about providing minorities with representation in the Chinese-majority Singapore. The officials in the city-state declared that only members of the Malay ethnic group would be allowed to run in 2017. Two of the contenders were quickly disqualified based on this criterion.
Under Singapore's constitution, a prospective president must also posses experience by either serving in public office, leading a government-linked organization, or a company worth at least $370 million (417 million euro) in shareholder equity.
Yacob, a former speaker of the parliament, was the only one to pass muster.
The decision to make her the only candidate prompted criticism from the public, especially on social media. While Singapore remains tightly controlled by the government, its citizens have grown increasingly vocal with their criticism of the ruling elite in recent years.
"All Singaporeans are unhappy that meritocracy and electoral fairness, core Singaporean values, have been eroded to fulfil perceived political goals," writer and political commentator Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh told the AFP news agency.
