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Hannah Yeoh
Malaysian politician and lawyer (born 1979) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Hannah Yeoh Tseow Suan[a] (born 9 January 1979) is a Malaysian politician and lawyer who has served as the Minister of Youth and Sports since 2022. From 2018 to 2020, she was the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development under Mahathir Mohamad. Prior to that, she made history in 2013 by becoming the youngest and first female Speaker of any legislative assembly in Malaysia, holding the role at the Selangor State Legislative Assembly until 2018.
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Early life and education
Hannah Yeoh Tseow Suan was born on 9 January 1979 and raised in Subang Jaya, Selangor.[1] She is one of five siblings.[2] Yeoh completed her early education at Sekolah Kebangsaan Subang Jaya and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Subang Utama before pursuing a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Tasmania in Australia, graduating in 2001.[3]
Career
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Early career
Trained as a lawyer, Yeoh began her career working in Tasmania before returning to Malaysia, where she spent three years at a legal firm in Petaling Jaya. In 2006, she transitioned to the event management industry. Encouraged by her school friend Edward Ling, Yeoh entered politics by joining the Democratic Action Party (DAP) the same year.[1][3][4] Just two years later, in the 2008 general election, she won the Subang Jaya state seat with a commanding majority of 13,851 votes, securing 23,459 votes against Barisan Nasional's (BN) Ong Chong Swen, who received 9,608.[5]
Speaker of the Selangor State Legislative Assembly
On 21 June 2013, at the age of 34, Yeoh was sworn in as the Speaker of the Selangor State Legislative Assembly, becoming Malaysia's youngest and first female state Speaker. During the same ceremony, Nik Nazmi was sworn in as the state's Deputy Speaker.[6][7] In June 2015, Yeoh defended her decision to wear a headscarf inside a mosque despite criticism from a columnist who labelled her an "enemy within" for seemingly betraying the Chinese community, emphasising that respecting the dress code of a place of worship does not equate to disloyalty.[8]
In the 2018 general election on 9 May, Yeoh won the Segambut parliamentary seat with 53,124 votes and a majority of 45,702,[1] defeating opponents Loga Bala Mohan and Solleh Ab Razak, who received 7,422 and 4,181 votes respectively. This marked her first term as Segambut's MP, succeeding Lim Lip Eng, with a significantly larger majority than in the previous election.[9] She was succeeded as Speaker by Ng Suee Lim, who was appointed to the position on 26 June 2018.[10]
Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development
Following her appointment as Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community Development on 2 July 2018, Yeoh pledged to be a strong voice for children in Dewan Rakyat.[11] In February 2019, she announced that the Sexual Harassment Bill would not be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat during the March session as the results of a recently completed feasibility study were still under careful review.[12] In July 2020, police investigations clarified that a seditious post wrongly attributed to Yeoh was actually uploaded by a portal called muafakatnasional.net, with no involvement from her.[13] Then, in August 2021, Yeoh called on Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to urgently establish a dedicated Ministry of Children to better address the critical needs of children in Malaysia.[14]
Yeoh successfully retained her Segambut parliamentary seat in the 2022 general election, securing a second term with a majority of 59,684 votes.[3] Later that year, in the 15th general election on 19 November 2022, she defended her seat decisively, winning over 80% of the vote with 65,290 votes and a majority of 56,980 against her opponents from Perikatan Nasional–Gerakan and BN–MCA.[15]
Minister of Youth and Sports
On 3 December 2022, Yeoh was appointed Minister of Youth and Sports in the Anwar Ibrahim cabinet.[3] In January 2024, Universiti Utara Malaysia lecturer Kamarul Zaman Yusoff withdrew his defamation suit against her, with the court ordering him to pay RM5,000 in costs, affirming Yeoh's position that she did not misuse religion in her campaign.[16] However, in 2024, Wan Ahmad Fayhsal criticised Yeoh for a lack of hands-on leadership amid controversies surrounding the Paris 2024 Olympics, stating that despite her limited control over sports associations, she bears ultimate responsibility.[17]
Following the party's leadership reshuffle on 16 March 2025, Yeoh continues to hold a prominent role as one of DAP's deputy secretaries-general.[18] In May 2025, the High Court ruled in her favour in a defamation suit against Kamarul Zaman, ordering him to pay RM400,000 in damages for making false and malicious claims that she was promoting a Christian proselytising agenda through her political platform.[19]
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Personal life
Yeoh is married to Ramachandran Muniandy, the CEO of Asia Mobiliti,[20] and together they have two children.[21]
Notes
- simplified Chinese: 杨巧双; traditional Chinese: 楊巧雙; pinyin: Yáng Qiǎoshuāng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Iôⁿ Khá-siang. In this Chinese name, the family name is Yeoh (杨). In accordance with custom, the Western-style name is Hannah Yeoh and the Chinese-style name is Yeoh Tseow Suan.
References
External links
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