Former finance minister Rishi Sunak completed a political comeback Monday, when he was selected prime minister by Britain's ruling Conservative Party, just seven weeks after he was beaten to office by Liz Truss.
Sunak, 42, will be the fifth British prime minister in six years, the third in less than two months. He is Britain's first Hindu prime minister, and the country's first leader of color.
He won an internal party contest to be the country's new leader following Truss' Oct. 20 resignation. Her tenure was the shortest ever for a British prime minister and was marked by economic turmoil. British voters elect a party, not a specific leader, meaning the ruling party has latitude to change a prime minister without calling an election. Because Sunak won the party contest, he automatically becomes prime minister.
Sunak is a former banker and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer – finance minister – in Boris Johnson's government. He oversaw Johnson's package of economic support for businesses and employees during the coronavirus pandemic but resigned over the summer citing a "fundamentally different" economic approach to dealing with Britain's cost of living crisis and government "standards," a reference to Johnson's gaffe-prone, controversial leadership style that has led to several allegations of misbehavior.
