Singapore ex-deputy PM Shanmugaratnam elected president

Singapore's former Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was elected President Friday, earning a landslide victory in the city-state's first contested vote for the largely ceremonial position in more than a decade.

He won 70.4 percent of the vote to win a six-year term. Shanmugaratnam acknowledged the "changing and evolving" nature of Singapore, notably its diversity, and said he believes the election was seen as "another milestone in that process of evolution."