IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – British politician Rishi Sunak has emerged as the United Kingdom Prime Minister after rival Penny Mordaunt failed to secure the necessary 100 nominations from her fellow members of Parliament (MPs).
Sunak won the support of an overwhelming majority of the Conservative Party MPs and became the first non-white PM, enabling him to claim the keys to No 10 (the official residence of the UK PM).
He emerged as the PM following the resignation of former PM, Liz Truss last Thursday.
Here are seven things you need to know about Sunak:
- Sunak was born on 12 May, 1980 in Southampton, England to Indian parents – Yashvir and Usha Sunak who Migrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. His father was a local doctor while his mother ran a pharmacy in southern England, something Sunak says gave him his desire to serve the public.
- He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Lincoln College, Oxford in 2001 and had a Master’s in Business Administration at Stanford University, USA.
- The new PM is known for his expensive taste in fashion and has worked for banks and hedge funds, including Goldman Sachs.
- In August 2009, Sunak married Akshata Murthy, the daughter of the Indian billionaire N.R Narayana Murthy, the founder of a technology company, Infosys.
- During the pandemic, Sunak put in place measures worth £400 billion ($452 billion) aimed at boosting the economy, including a generous furlough scheme, business loans and discounts on eating in restaurants. But that stimulus came at a huge cost and left the government scrambling to find savings.
- Also, Rishi Sunak was the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer – the UK’s title for its chief finance minister – from February 13 2020 to July 5 2022 under Boris Johnson’s government.
- He also secured the most votes from MPs in the last leadership election – comfortably clearing the new threshold with 137 endorsements. Although Truss eventually won the decisive vote among grassroots members, Sunak was not far behind, gaining 43% of the vote.
Johnson has made no secret of the fact that he believes Sunak betrayed him by resigning from his government, triggering his resignation on July 7 after a string of scandals made his position untenable.
The ex-British PM’s downfall followed months of revelations of parties held in 10 Downing Street while the rest of the country was under Covid lockdown restrictions. Johnson himself was fined by the police, making him the first prime minister in history found to have broken the law in office.
For a long time, Sunak stood by Johnson – especially since he too was fined in the so-called Partygate scandal.
But he turned against him after Johnson was slow to act when his deputy chief whip responsible for party discipline, Chris Pincher, was accused of sexually assaulting two men at a party in early July. (Pincher later said he had “drunk far too much,” although has not directly addressed the allegations.)
Sunak’s shock resignation from Johnson’s cabinet over the Pincher scandal set into motion a series of high-profile resignations that led to Johnson’s demise — and ultimately, to his own rise to the Downing Street.