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Tunku Abdul Rahman

Tunku Abdul Rahman
Tunku Abdul Rahman
Order: 1st Prime Minister
Term of Office: August 31, 1957 - September 22, 1970
Succeeded by: Tun Abdul Razak
Date of Birth February 8, 1903
Place of Birth: Alor Star, Kedah
Date of Death: December 6, 1990
Place of Death: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Wife: Sharifah Rodziah Syed Alwi Barakbah
Occupation: lawyer
Political Party: UMNO
Deputy PM : Tun Abdul Razak (? - 1970)

Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj (February 8 1903 - December 6, 1990) known simply as the Tunku, and often called Bapa Kemerdekaan (Father of Independence) or Bapa Malaysia (Father of Malaysia), was Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya from 1955 and the country's first Prime Minister from independence in 1957. The Tunku remained Prime Minister after Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined in 1963 to form Malaysia.

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Biography

Born in Alor Setar, Kedah, on February 8, 1903, Tunku was the seventh son and twentieth child of Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah , the 24th Sultan of Kedah.

The Tunku was educated in Debsurin School , Bangkok and the Penang Free School in his early years. Later on, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in law and history from St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, in 1925.

Upon his return home, he joined the Kedah civil service, but some time later returned to England to complete his law studies at the Inner Temple, but was forced to stop them in 1938 and, on the outbreak of World War II, he returned to Malaya. He resumed his studies at the Inner Temple in 1947 and, in 1949, he qualified for the Bar.

Upon his return, he served as a magistrate and later as President of the Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur. He won the Presidency of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in 1951. In 1955, partly due to his efforts, the Alliance Party was formed, which soon won the country's first general election, which was held in the same year. Tunku was then appointed as the Chief Minister of Malaya.

On February 8, 1956, Tunku signed the Independence of Malaya agreement with the British. Merdeka or Independence was declared on August 31, 1957. Tunku became Malaysia's first Prime Minister in 1957, and led the Alliance to mostly landslide wins in the 1959 , 1964 and 1969 general elections.

Following racial riots in 1969, Tunku's powers as Prime Minister were severely curtailed under the emergency committee MAGERAN . Subsequently, in September 1970, Tunku resigned as Prime Minister of Malaysia. He resigned as UMNO President in June 1971.

Tunku later served as Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Jeddah. He was active in many Muslim based organisations such as PERKIM. In 1977, having acquired substantial shares in The Star, a Penang-based newspaper, Tunku became the newspaper's Chairman. His columns, Looking Back and As I See It, were largely critical of the government and in 1987, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad banned the newspaper.

In 1988, following the banning of UMNO by the country's High Court, Tunku and another former Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn set up UMNO Malaysia, but the new party's registration was quashed by Mahathir Mohamad, who set up his own UMNO Baru. Tunku later supported Parti Melayu Semangat 46 , a splinter group of UMNO led by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. He campaigned actively for the latter in the General election of 1990 , but was already in very poor health. He died at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital on December 6, 1990.

Tunku married at least four times. By his first wife, a Chinese named Meriam Chong, he had Tunku Ahmad Nerang Putra and Tunku Khadijah . On Meriam's death, he married his former landlady in England, Violet Coulson. Ordered to divorce her by the Regent of Kedah, he married a distant cousin, Sharifah Rodziah Syed Alwi Barakbah , with whom he adopted four children. He also had a daughter by his fourth wife, a Chinese lady.

In his august years, residing by the seaside where he has a home in Penang, he often told of how Malaya gained independence, his thoughts on the first of August, of the approaching 31st August 1957 was, One whole month. Less one day.

External links

First Prime Minister of Malaysia Prime Ministers of Malaysia Succeeded by:
Tun Abdul Razak
Last updated: 06-02-2005 03:22:02
Last updated: 08-31-2005 16:29:52