Tamil-origin Tharman Shanmugaratnam is new President of Singapore

Tharman Shanmugaratnam whose grandparents are from Urelu in the Jaffna district of Northern Sri Lanka has made a history on September 1 by getting elected as President of Singapore.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam whose grandparents are from Urelu in the Jaffna district of Northern Sri Lanka has made a history on September 1 by getting elected as President of Singapore. He registered a landslide victory in the presidential election.

Generally referred to as Tharman, the 66 year old London School of Economics, Cambridge and Harvard educated economist is also the first “Ceylon Tamil” to be elected as Singapore president. He has earlier served as Singapore’s deputy Prime Minister and Finance minister.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam received a resounding mandate with a whopping 70.4 percent votes in a three-way contest to elect the city-state's ninth President.

Tharman’s main rival Ng Kok Song, a former chief investment officer of Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which manages the country’s foreign reserves, conceded after winning only 15.7% of the vote.

The government in Singapore is run by the Prime Minister. The current PM is Lee Hsien Loong of the Peoples Action Party (PAP) which has ruled Singapore continuously since 1959. Lee is the son of the legendary Lee Kuan Yew.

“Singaporeans have chosen Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam to be our next President by a decisive margin,” Lee Hsien Loong said in a statement.

The US sent a congratulatory message to Shanmugaratnam that pointed to “mutual respect, shared values and common interests” with Singapore.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam was born on February 25, 1957 and is of Sri Lankan-Tamil Ancestry. His father is Emeritus Professor K. Shanmugaratnam, a renowned histopathologist and is known as the “Father of Pathology in Singapore”.

Tharman’s maternal grandfather was Dr. ArumugamVuswalingam a renowned medical practitioner and scientist who migrated from Urelu in Jaffna to Kuala Lumpur in Malaya during British rule.

Tharman is married to Jane Yumiko Ittogi, a Singaporean lawyer of mixed Chinese-Japanese ancestry. She is actively engaged in social enterprise and the non-profit arts sector in Singapore. The couple have one daughter and three sons together.

Most of Tharman’s earlier career as a professional was spent at the Monetary Authority of Singapore where he served as a Director of Economics and later became the Managing Director.

He was awarded the Singapore Public Administration Gold Medal in 1999.

Tharman entered the world of politics in 2001 and was appointed as a Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Trade and Industry as well as the Ministry of Education. He became the Minister of Education in 2003 until 2008. He was also appointed to the post of Second Minister of Finance back in May of 2006 and became the Minister of Finance in December of 2007.