Indian-Origin Economist Sworn In As Singapore President

Mumbai: Tharman Shanmugaratnam, an economist of Indian origin, was on Thursday sworn in as Singapore’s ninth President.

The 66-year-old Shanmugaratnam will serve a six-year term, reported PTI.

He succeeds Singapore’s first female President Halimah Yacob, whose term ended on September 13.

Shanmugaratnam, who served as a senior minister between 2019 and 2023 and deputy Prime Minister from May 2011 to May 2019, won a landslide Presidential election earlier this month, polling 70.4% of the votes.

He became the sixth elected president of Singapore.

Singapore had two Indian-origin presidents before Shanmugaratnam.

Sellapan Ramanathan, popularly known as S R Nathan, was a politician and civil servant of Tamil descent. He defeated Benjamin Sheares in 2009 to become Singapore’s longest-serving president.

Chengara Veetil Devan Nair, better known as Devan Nair, served as the third president of Singapore from 1981 until his resignation in 1985. The Malaysia-born Nair was the son of a rubber plantation clerk who was originally from Thalassery, Kerala.