Tunku Abdul Rahman

Biography

Tunku Abdul Rahman was born in Alor Setar in 1903, a son of Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah of Kedah and a Thai mother. He attended schools in Alor Setar, Bangkok and Penang before going to England on a state scholarship, and graduated from St Catharine's College, Cambridge, in 1925. Joining the Kedah civil service in 1931, he served as a district officer in Kulim, Padang Terap and Langkawi, and stayed at his post in Kulim during the Japanese occupation.

After the war he campaigned against the Malayan Union, qualified as a barrister in London, and worked as a public prosecutor and court president. In August 1951 he was elected president of UMNO. He built the Alliance with the Malayan Chinese Association and later the Malayan Indian Congress, a coalition that won 51 of 52 seats in the 1955 federal election and made him chief minister.

Tunku met the communist leader Chin Peng at the Baling Talks in December 1955 without result, then led the delegation to London that secured an agreement on independence. On 31 August 1957 he proclaimed Malaya's independence and became its first prime minister. He proposed the wider federation that became Malaysia in 1963, but in 1965 he concluded that Singapore had to leave it.

After the Alliance's setback in the 1969 election and the riots of 13 May, his authority waned; he handed the premiership to Abdul Razak in September 1970 and gave up the UMNO presidency in 1971. He served as the first secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, led the Asian Football Confederation, and as chairman of The Star newspaper became a critic of Mahathir Mohamad. He died in Kuala Lumpur in 1990.