Topic summary
Ismail Sabri Yaakob
18 January 1960
affiliations
- Barisan Nasional (1987–present)
- Muafakat Nasional (2019–2022)
- Perikatan Nasional (2020–2022)
Universiti Utara Malaysia (PhD)
- Politician
- lawyer
Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob (Jawi: اسماعيل صبري بن يعقوب; born 18 January 1960) is a Malaysian politician and lawyer who was the ninth prime minister of Malaysia from 2021 to 2022. A member of UMNO, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bera since 2004. Ismail previously was the deputy prime minister in 2021.
Born in Pahang, Ismail started his career as a laywer. He became active in UMNO before entering the Parliament of Malaysia as the Member of Parliament for Bera in 2004. Currently, he is the Division Chief of Bera of 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 a result from 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.