ENGLAND — Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, became the third leader in seven weeks of a nation destabilized by political and economic instability and the first British Asian to win the position of prime minister.
Following Liz Truss' departure just 44 days after assuming office, Sunak, 42, will be the most recent member of the governing Conservative Party to walk through No. 10 Downing Street's rotating doors. Boris Johnson, her scandal-plagued predecessor, abandoned his bid to run again on Sunday.
On Monday, Sunak's triumph was officially declared after his sole opponent Penny Mordaunt was unable to amass enough of the votes of her fellow parliamentarians by the deadline.
Graham Brady, the Conservative legislator in charge of the party's leadership elections, announced to his colleagues as they clapped and slammed tables, "Rishi Sunak is thus elected as leader of the Conservative Party."
Now that Sunak has been invited by King Charles III to form a cabinet, the nation's new king will perform this ceremonial task for the first time.The 67 million citizens of the United Kingdom did not elect Sunak, a multimillionaire former banker, but rather politicians from the Conservative Party, which is currently experiencing historic polling lows following a decade of austerity and 18 months of controversy and division.
In the past two months, the party has held two leadership elections. Until Truss' late surge, who won the support of the party's almost 200,000 paying members—most of whom are white, wealthy, and men—and tend to tilt to the right of the British political center—Sunak was the undisputed front-runner in the first round.
This time, those members were powerless because only Sunak received the necessary backing from 100 parliamentarians to go to a potential runoff.
Johnson insisted that he was capable of crossing this threshold, and he very well could have garnered a larger majority of the membership. However, considering how unpopular Johnson is in Parliament, doing so would have put a tremendous amount of burden on a fiercely split party. Minutes before the deadline of 9 a.m. ET, Sunak's other rival, Mordaunt, said that she too had not gathered sufficient support. She declared in a statement, "Rishi has my entire support.
Sunak, a Hindu of Indian ancestry born in Africa, will be the nation's second ethnic minority leader following Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a Christian who was born of Jewish parents in the 1800s. On Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, Sunak became victorious in the leadership competition.
Sunak, who was raised in the southern port city of Southampton, was elected to represent Richmond in Yorkshire's northern region in 2015. His quick ascent through the ranks saw him establish his own personal brand with a polished social media strategy and well-liked tactics to ease the strain of the pandemic's economic effects.
Sunak's sole public statement throughout the most recent leadership race was on Twitter on Sunday: "The United Kingdom is a lovely country but we confront a profound economic problem." "I want to reunite our party, heal our economy, and serve our nation."
It will require a herculean effort because he assumes office during a domestic economic crisis and as Britain struggles to adjust to life outside of the European Union.He will be hoping that the coronation on Monday will help to bring his divided party together. His party's wingmen range from culture-warrior free-marketeers to liberal centrists who wouldn't look out of place in the American Democratic party.
Bringing about economic peace and stability will be even more difficult given that Britain is experiencing a terrible recession with no clear end in sight as well as a cost of living problem that is already making some people go hungry.
Due to the crisis caused by Truss' brief term, which drove interest rates skyrocketing and the pound plummeting, markets now anticipate spending cuts and tax increases from the government. Sunak has not yet disclosed his views, but he has consistently pushed for fiscal prudence.
Sunak, a teetotaller and quick study, is seen by many party members as a technocratic, calming influence after the chaos of the Johnson-Truss era. He predicted that many of Truss' tax-cutting plans would lead to economic disaster during their leadership race last month, and he was correct.
Johnson finally decided against participating in this fight, but it is the most recent cause of contention between the two men, who were formerly close allies when they were at the top of the administration until recently.Johnson's finance minister, Sunak, held the second-highest ranking in the executive branch. But Sunak left and ultimately assisted in the downfall of his former employer after yet another incident surfaced casting doubt on Johnson's loyalty to the truth.
Sunak received a fine from the police after they discovered that he, too, had breached the law over the "partygate" incident, despite the fact that he is not as closely associated with the allegations about drunken lockdown-busting parties as Johnson is.
He and his wife, Akshata Murthy, 42, received harsh criticism earlier this year when it was revealed that she had paid millions less in taxes because she had legitimately claimed "nondomicile" status in the U.K., which meant that she was classified as being located abroad for tax purposes.
Sunak, a former banker, has an estimated 730 million-pound wealth, which makes him and his wife richer than the king and Camila, the queen consort. This fortune comes from Sunak's wife's father, the Indian software entrepreneur NR Narayana Murthy.
They have four properties total, including a penthouse apartment in Santa Monica, California, with views of the ocean where "Baywatch" was filmed, in addition to their new property in Downing Street.
The original version of this item appeared on NBCNews.com.
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