Ismail Sabri Yaakob

Biography

Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob (born 18 January 1960 in Temerloh, Pahang) was the ninth Prime Minister of Malaysia, from August 2021 to November 2022. A lawyer and a member of UMNO, he has been the Member of Parliament for Bera since 2004. He is the son of a rubber tapper and sold limes and fish at the Temerloh market as a schoolboy. He read law at the University of Malaya, writing his final thesis on the treatment of political detainees in Malaysia — a subject shaped by the detention without trial of his elder brother, the student leader Kamarazaman Yaakob. Ismail Sabri won Bera in 2004 and served in Barisan Nasional cabinets from 2008 until the coalition's defeat in 2018, holding Youth and Sports, Domestic Trade, Agriculture, and Rural and Regional Development. He was Leader of the Opposition from March 2019 to February 2020. In the Perikatan Nasional government he became Senior Minister for Security and Minister of Defence, giving the daily briefings that made him one of the most visible figures of Malaysia's pandemic response, and served a 40-day stint as Deputy Prime Minister in 2021. When UMNO withdrew support from Muhyiddin Yassin in June 2021 over the handling of the pandemic, Ismail Sabri led the faction that continued to back the prime minister. After the government fell he secured the support of the most MPs and was sworn in on 21 August 2021. As prime minister he lifted the movement control order as vaccination expanded, oversaw the Twelfth Malaysia Plan and the response to the 2021–2022 floods, and signed a memorandum of understanding on transformation and political stability with the opposition. He called an early election in November 2022, at which Barisan Nasional recorded its worst result. He has attracted criticism for statements in support of Malay pre-eminence.

Constituencies (1)

Electoral track record

63 mentions across 11 months

News mentions