Zainul Abidin (politician)
Singaporean politician
Zainul Abidin bin Mohamed Rasheed (born 17 March 1948) is a Singaporean diplomat, former politician and journalist. A former member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), Zainul has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing Eunos ward of Aljunied Group Representation Constituency between 2001 and 2011 and Cheng San Group Representation Constituency representing Punggol East ward from 1997 to 2001.
He previously served as Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs between 2006 and 2011 and the Mayor of North East District from 2001 to 2009. He has been serving as Singapore Ambassador to the State of Kuwait and Special Envoy to the Middle East.
Education
Zainul attended Jalan Daud Primary School and Raffles Institution before graduating from the National University of Singapore where he majored in economics. He was also awarded the Gold Outstanding Young Singaporean Award in 1974.
Career
Journalistic career
Zainul worked as a journalist with Singapore Press Holdings between 1976 and 1996, working as an editor for the Asia News Bulletin, Berita Harian and The Sunday Times, and then Associate Editor of The Straits Times, before being seconded to the government sector.
Political career
Zainul first stood for the 1997 Singapore general elections under the People's Action Party (PAP) under Cheng San Group Representation Constituency (GRC), against the Workers' Party (WP), whose notable candidates were J. B. Jeyaratnam and Tang Liang Hong. The PAP won the constituency.
Zainul was appointed Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1998 – 2001.
“Zainul Abidin (politician)” enters the record as singaporean politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Zainul, Abidin and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7463428. VIAF identifies the subject as 19567566. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 2001, 2011 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zainul Abidin (politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.