The head of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, withdrew her candidacy for the election of prime minister, so her rival Rishi Sunak automatically becomes the new head of the Conservative Party and, accordingly, the prime minister of Great Britain, the leadership of the British Conservative Party reported on Monday.
“Rishi Sunak has been chosen as the new leader of the Conservative Party,” said Sir Graham Brady, head of the House of Commons “1922 committee” that was in charge of the process of choosing a new leader.
Mordaunt, for her part, tweeted that she had withdrawn her candidacy for the prime ministerial election and said that thus “we have chosen our new prime minister”, noting that she fully supports Sunak.
Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton to a doctor and pharmacist on May 12, 1980. He graduated from the University of Oxford where he studied philosophy, politics and economics, and later received an MBA from Stanford University. There, the politician met his future wife Akshata Murthy, the daughter of the co-founder of the Indian multinational IT company Infosys, billionaire Narayana Murthy. Sunak managed to work in one of the largest investment banks in the world Goldman Sachs Group and hedge fund The Children’s Investment Fund Management.
In 2015, Sunak won the parliamentary elections in the Richmond constituency in West Yorkshire. He first entered the government under Theresa May in 2018, receiving the position of Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Sunak voted three times for May’s EU Brexit deal, but it was rejected in 2019, largely leading to her resignation and the rise to power of Boris Johnson.
After May’s resignation, Sunak supported Johnson as the candidate for leader of the Conservative Party. Johnson came to power in 2019 and appointed Sunak to the post of deputy head of the Treasury, but already in 2020 he went on a promotion and headed the Treasury, replacing Sajid Javid in this post.
On July 5, 2022, Sunak became the second minister after Javid to resign in connection with the Johnson scandals. Three days later, Sunak announced his candidacy for the post of the new leader of the Tories and, accordingly, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The former head of the Ministry of Finance gained the majority of votes in all rounds of the election of the head of the Conservative Party, but in the final round he lost to former Foreign Minister Liz Truss. Truss took office as prime minister, but was able to hold it for only 45 days, after which she was forced to resign.
