A Briton with Kenyan roots, Mr Rishi Sunak, is on the brink of becoming the next British prime minister occupying one of the most powerful seats in the world after making it to the final round of choosing a successor for Boris Johnson.
Mr Sunak, who is a son of a Kenyan father and Tanzanian mother, is now just a step away and stands at a pole position to occupy the coveted seat as the final voting pitting him against Liz Truss is scheduled for September.
Born in Southampton in 1980, Mr Sunak’s father is Yashvir Sunak, who was born and raised in colonial-era Kenya. His mother Usha Sunak was born in Tanganyika. His family tree traces back to Punjab in India.
Mr Sunak, according to various British media publications, is fairly wealthy and generous. He is aged 42 and is a graduate of Oxford and Stanford universities, after benefiting from the Fulbright scholarship.
A win for Mr Sunak in September will once again put Kenya on the global map at least for good reasons after the historic win of Barack Obama in 2008 as the President of the United States of America.
Additionally, a win for Mr Sunak will mean that the Kenyan connection with Britain will keep expanding.
According to Mr Sharad Rao, a Kenyan with Indian roots, Kenyans of Asian origin who, along with their Ugandan counterparts, were unwelcome immigrants in the UK and Canada following an exodus decades ago, are today considered an asset by those countries.
“This was evidenced in a speech delivered by the British Prime Minister David Cameron to the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom on the occasion of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK in 2015,” Mr Rao told the Nation in an email.
“Mr Cameron paid tribute to the Indians living in Britain and made a specific reference to those from East Africa for having contributed to the development of Great Britain in various sectors. Similar sentiments were expressed by the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Diwali message to Indians living in Canada,” he added.
Thanked supporters for milestone
In a 41-second video posted on his official Twitter page account on Wednesday just after the crucial vote of the MPs, Mr Sunak thanked his supporters for the milestone, saying it’s time to reach out to more people and deliver a message of unity and revival of the economy.
“We’ve just gotten the results, and wow thank you so much everyone for your support, I’m so humble and delighted that we got into this stage in the contest. I will not let you down. I will work as hard as I can to put our message out there to the country, we need to restore trust and the economy and unite our country, I’m confident we can do that and we now have a positive message to take to our people out there. I believe I’m the best candidate to be considered by the Labour party, once again thank you for your support,” a visibly elated Mr Sunak says on the video.
Ms Truss also took to social media to thank her supporters saying she is “ready to hit the ground running from day one”.
Mr Sunak’s father, a doctor, was a general practitioner. His mother is a pharmacist and had established her own pharmacy.
A biography of Mr Sunak written by Lord Michael Ashcroft cited one former student saying this of him: “He was someone that was talked about; the teachers would say, ‘He’s going to be a Prime Minister.'”
His parents decided to send him to Winchester College, one of England’s elite learning institutions. He sat the scholarship exam but did not manage to get a scholarship. His father took on an extra job and managed to have him admitted to Winchester.
He went on to Lincoln College, Oxford, and later joined Goldman Sachs, which normally took only four per cent of those who applied.
After three years as an analyst, he joined Stanford University and did an MBA funded by a Fulbright scholarship. That is where he met his wife, Akshata. She is the daughter of Narayan Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys, and the sixth richest man in India.
In the 2015 general election in the UK, Mr Sunak was elected to Parliament from Richmond in North Yorkshire.
“The departing British cabinet had two other senior ministers of Indian origin. Ms Priti Patel, the Home Minister has an East African connection as her parents were once in Uganda. Mr Alok Sharma, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, is from Punjab, India,” Mr Rao told Nation .
Although Mr Sunak is credited as having steered the UK economy through the pandemic, the British media predict that he might not find a forgiving crowd among party members with many blaming him for triggering Johnson’s downfall with his resignation earlier this month.
Mr Johnson was forced to resign this month after he lost the support of his legislators following months of scandals, including breaches of Covid-19 pandemic lockdown rules.
Mr Sunak and Ms Truss will now battle it out to become Britain’s next prime minister after they won the final vote among Conservative Party MPs on Wednesday, setting up the last stage of the contest to replace former leader Johnson.
Mr Sunak is among the 11 candidates that originally expressed their interest to replace Mr Johnson. But after a rigorous process, the list has now been sifted to two.
On Wednesday, the fifth and final ballot of Conservative legislators eliminated Mordaunt.
The Conservative Party's 357 eligible MPs held a series of votes over the past week. The candidate polling the lowest number was eliminated in each round, until only two remained.
The two candidates now take their case to Conservative party members, who will decide the new leader and prime minister after a series of nationwide activities in August.
They intend to convince the party members with their policies not only to the party, but also to the country.
Al Jazeera reports that whoever triumphs when the result is announced on September 5 will inherit some of the most difficult economic conditions in Britain in decades. Inflation is on course to hit 11 per cent annually, growth is stalling, industrial action is on the rise and the pound is near historic lows against the dollar.
Whatever the outcome in September, Kenya is already on the global map over the triumph made so far and Kenyans will be waiting with baited breath for the final global prize.
