From Bullied Iraqi Refugee to Boris' Minister: What's the Story of Nadhim Zahawi?
The last 48 hours were big for Nadhim Zahawi; two days ago, the Brexit-backing Stratford-upon-Avon MP was discussing teacher strikes, and hours later, the education secretary jumped into the second most important job in the British government as a new Chancellor.
His appointment came after a series of bombshell resignations from Boris Johnson's government, where ministers said they lost confidence.
From Refugee to Minister
Wednesday, June 5, was a special day for Nadhim Zahawi when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed him as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer after the resignation of Rishi Sunak.
Zahawi was the education secretary before being named by Johnson as the chief executive of the treasury.
The British PM also appointed Steve Barclay as the new health secretary after Sajid Javid's resignation.
A few minutes separated, Sunak and Javid resigned from Boris' government Tuesday evening.
The reshuffle also witnessed Michelle Donelan's appointment as the new education secretary to replace Zahawi's position.
The reason behind the two high-profile law resignations was a scandal over the government maker, Chris Pincher, who resigned last week from his position as the deputy chief whip after an incident occurred at a private members' club.
Downing Street said Johnson was not aware of the previous specific claims against Chris Pincher, but it was later revealed that he was, in fact, informed of previous instances of alleged misconduct on Pincher's part in 2019.
A Glimpse of His Life
Nadhim Zahawi is an Iraqi-born Kurdish-British politician born on June 2, 1967, in Baghdad; he is now serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The member of the Conservative Party has also been a Member of Parliament (MP) for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010.
From 2021 to 2022, Zahawi was appointed as Secretary of State for Education, and from 2020 to 2021, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment in the Second Johnson ministry.
The Iraqi new minister is a keen rider and show jumper, and he runs a horse riding school with his wife, Lana.
He is a member of the private members' club Soho House. After former US President Donald Trump's executive order banning travelers from some Muslim majority countries, Zahawi reported that, despite being a British citizen, he couldn't enter the United States as he was born in Iraq—the ban also affected his wife.
According to a media report, this prevented Zahawi from visiting his children who were attending university in the US.
The Iraqi-born new minister spoke out against Trump's policy, urging the UK not to remain silent.
He also argued that Prime Minister Theresa May's failure to condemn the travel ban helped establish the Islamic State in Iraq and other countries.
Fleeing Saddam
Nadhim told Nick Robinson on the Political Thinking podcast last year that "[he] would have been drafted into the Iraqi army, had to go to the front line and probably die,"
However, he and his parents were forced to leave Iraq, and he grew up in Britain.
The new minister's family was influential in the country; his grandfather, for example, was "the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, and his signature appeared on the country's banknotes," according to BBC.
Mr. Zahawi's family came under threat the moment Saddam Hussein came to power in the late 1970s.
Zahawi has been a long-standing member of the Conservative Party, and he worked in the 1990s as "an aide for novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer, who was jailed for perjury in 2001," according to Reuters.
In 2000 he co-founded the polling company YouGov and was its chief executive until 2010, turning the company into one of Britain's top market research companies.
His success in business motivated then prime minister David Cameron to appoint Nadhim Zahawi to the policy unit in Downing Street.
In 2020? He was appointed minister in charge of the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts. Boris Johnson appointed Zahawi to the cabinet as education secretary after working in junior ministerial roles in the education and business departments in 2021.
Just a day into the new job, Zahawi stabs Boris in the back, urging him to resign; as insiders suggest, he may have been plotting his own leadership for months.
The new minister withdrew his support for Johnson and publicly called on him to resign. Johnson did so shortly afterward.
