Rishi Sunak is the United Kingdom’s newest prime minister making history as the first person of color to hold the position in a race triggered by the dramatic resignation of Liz Truss.
Rishi Sunak won the ruling Conservative Party’s leadership contest on Monday and is poised to steer the government after Truss’ disastrous mini-budget plunged the markets into chaos. He must now unite the Tory party which seems to be in disarray ahead of the next general election.
He lost to Truss in September, and since her resignation six weeks later, he racked up the support of his fellow MPs early, gaining more than 100 nominations quickly to contest for the post.
What to know about Rishi Sunak
- He becomes UK’s 5th PM in six years.
- He is Hindu, born in South England to Indian parents.
- At 42 years old, he is the youngest prime minister in 200 years.
- He was believed to be one of the richest parliamentarians.
- Sunak was chancellor in 2020 and was responsible for steering the UK economy at the beginning of the pandemic and its lockdowns.
- In April, he and former PM Boris Johnson were fined for attending parties during lockdowns.
- He was also embroiled in a scandal when his multi-millionaire wife was accused of avoiding tax by claiming ‘non-domicile status’ which permitted her to save millions of pounds in tax on dividends collected from her family’s IT business empire.