Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob

Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob (Jawi: اسماعيل صبري بن يعقوب; born 18 January 1960) is a Malaysian politician and lawyer who served as the ninth Prime Minister of Malaysia from 2021 to 2022. He is both the shortest-serving prime minister (served for 15 months) and the shortest-serving deputy prime minister (served for 40 days). He is also the first prime minister born after the independence of Malaya, the first former Leader of the Opposition to become prime minister, the only prime minister who did not hold the highest position of the governing party or coalition, and the only prime minister to serve without a deputy. A Member of Parliament (MP) for Bera since 2004, Ismail is the Division Chief of Bera of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. He also served as the vice president of UMNO from June 2018 to March 2023. As of a result of the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis, he was formally appointed and sworn in as prime minister on 21 August 2021 following the resignation of his predecessor Muhyiddin Yassin. Ismail served in several cabinet positions in the BN administration under former Prime Ministers Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak, from March 2008 to its 2018 general election loss. He was the 15th Leader of the Opposition in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration from March 2019 to its collapse in February 2020 amid the 2020 Malaysian political crisis. In the PN government, he was prominent in the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in his roles as Senior Minister for Security, and later during a 40-day stint as Deputy Prime Minister. He led a faction of his party (UMNO) that continued supporting Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in June 2021, when the party withdrew its support over the government's handling of the pandemic. After this culminated in the collapse of the government and Muhyiddin's resignation, he successfully entered negotiations to become prime minister in August 2021 after garnering the support of the most MPs. As Prime Minister, Ismail Sabri lifted the Movement Control Order following the expansion of the vaccination programme and oversaw the Twelfth Malaysia Plan. Ismail Sabri has attracted controversy for his comments in support of ethnic Malay pre-eminence in Malaysia.