Rishi Sunak leads first two laps but UK PM race is far from won

Rishi Sunak, a British MP of Indian origin, has seized an early lead in the race within the Conservative party to succeed Boris Johnson as British PM, but he will have a tougher time convincing its wider membership to back his cause even as there are potentially damaging controversies and credible candidates to contend with.
Who is Rishi Sunak?
The 42-year-old MP was born in Southampton in 1980 to Indian parents who had emigrated from east Africa. He studied politics and economics at the University of Oxford before earning an MBA from Stanford University in the US, where he met his future wife Akshata, daughter of Infosys founder and billionaire NR Narayana Murthy.

Sunak began his career as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, and after working at several hedge fund and investment firms – including Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures – was a “multimillionaire by his mid-20s”. Akshata and he are worth £730 million, which makes him one of the wealthiest British MPs.

Johnson Loyalist
Sunak was elected Conservative MP from Richmond in 2015, and supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum. He was re-elected in 2017 and became a junior minister under then PM Theresa May.
In 2019, he supported Boris Johnson’s bid to become PM. Johnson later appointed him chief secretary to the treasury and he also became a member of the Privy Council, an advisory body to the Queen. Sunak was named chancellor of the exchequer in 2020 in a cabinet reshuffle after incumbent Sajid Javid resigned over differences with Johnson.

Navigating Covid, Leaving Cabinet
As chancellor, Sunak provided financial support for businesses to retain employees during the pandemic. He also created the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ programme to aid the hospitality industry. To offset the effects of Covid and the Ukraine invasion on the cost of living, he increased the minimum wage, subsidised fuel and energy expenditure, and promised to reduce income tax in 2024.
Sunak’s resignation from the cabinet earlier this month to protest the many scandals under Johnson started a furry of resignations across the Conservative party and precipitated Johnson’s fall.

A Controversial figure himself
Akshata’s ‘Non-dom’ Status: Early this year it was revealed that Akshata remained an Indian citizen while Sunak was serving as a UK minister. Her “non-dom” or non-domicile status meant she did not have to pay taxes on her personal wealth. Akshata later agreed to pay taxes in the UK while holding on to her Indian passport. Minister With A Green Card: Sunak retained his US permanent residency ‘green card’ for six years after he became a British MP. He finally gave it up ahead of his first official visit to the US. ‘Partygate’, ‘Upper Class Friends’: Sunak was one of the British government functionaries fined for breaching Covid restrictions they had themselves put in place, in what is known as the ‘Partygate’ scandal. A 2001 interview in which he said he had friends who were aristocrats and upper class but “not the working class” has also caused him embarrassment.

His Competition
Five Conservative MPs have sailed into the third round to elect the party leader. Sunak now has the support of 101 out of 358 party MPs – an improvement over his first round tally of 88. His nearest rival, trade minister Penny Mordaunt, has also improved her tally from 67 to 83. Another Indian-origin MP, Suella Braverman, was eliminated in the second round on Thursday. Voting will continue until only two candidates remain, with the deadline set for July 21. After that the roughly 200,000 Conservative party members will pick a leader from the two nalists.