Rishi Sunak: Politician With Kenyan Roots Named UK’s Next Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak has won the Conservative Party leadership race and he is set to become the next British Prime Minister following Liz Truss’ resignation.

He was placed on course to be the next UK Prime Minister after being declared the new leader of the Conservative Party by the head of the 1922 Committee of Conservative legislators.

Sunak defeated politician Penny Mordaunt who lacked enough backing from Members of Parliament (MPs) to enter the ballot.

At the same time, his rival, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, quit the contest citing inability to unite the party.

The 42-year-old becomes Britain’s third prime minister in less than two months, after Truss who only lasted 44 days in the office.

This comes even as Truss declared her full support for Sunak in an update shared across her social media platforms on Monday.

“Congratulations @RishiSunak on being appointed as Leader of the Conservative Party and our next Prime Minister. You have my full support,” Truss wrote on Twitter.

Having being named the next UK prime minister, Sunak will Truss will have to visit King Charles III to formally stand down.

King Charles will then meet with Sunak and ask him to form a new government.

Elsewhere, Sunak who was born in Southampton in May 1980 has Kenyan roots.

His dad, Usher Sanak, was born and raised in Kenya when it was still a British colony while his mother, Usha Sunak, was born in Tanzania when it was a British territory.

Sunak’s grandparents were born in Punjab province, British India and migrated from East Africa with their families to the UK in the 1960s.

Sunak was first elected as an MP in 2015 and spent two years on the backbenches, during which Brexit dominated the political agenda.

He supported UK leaving the EU during the 2016 referendum and became a junior minister in Theresa May’s government.

Later, Johnson gave Sunak his first major government role when he first appointed him as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2019, and as the Chancellor in 2020.