Singapore prepares for first female president

Singapore is gearing up for its first female president as Halimah Yacob has been deemed the only candidate eligible to stand for this year's presidential election.The country's elections department said on Monday it had issued only one certificate of eligibility among the three presidential candidates.While the statement does not explicitly name the successful recipient, the two other presidential hopefuls, Salleh Marican and Farid Khan, confirmed that they have been notified about their failed bid to qualify for the presidential race.Yacob, 63, had automatically qualified as a candidate from the public sector, having served as speaker of parliament from 2013 to 2017. The Singaporean constitution requires candidates from the public sector to have held public office for at least three years.Marican and Khan were disqualified as they had failed to head a company with at least S$500mn ($372mn) in shareholder equity for three years, a stipulation laid out by the Singapore constitution for candidates from the private sector.Only people who have previously held public office or have exclusively worked in the private sector are eligible to run for president in Singapore, given that they meet constitutional requirements.Singaporeans had expected to vote in a presidential election on September 23, but that will be cancelled on account of there being only one eligible candidate.Yacob will be Singapore's second Malay president after Yusof Ishak, who took office after the nation's independence from Malaysia in 1965.Yacob is expected to be formally declared Singapore's eighth president on Nomination Day on Wednesday.