Rishi Sunak becomes UK’s third prime minister in seven weeks

(CNN)— Rishi Sunak has become Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks after an audience with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace in London on Tuesday.

He met with the King at the royal residence shortly after his predecessor Liz Truss tendered her resignation to the monarch following a shambolic 50-day tenure which shook Britain’s economy to its core.

Sunak becomes the first person of color and the first Hindu to lead Britain after winning a fast-tracked Conservative Party leadership contest on Monday. At 42, he is also the youngest person to take the office in more than 200 years.

Speaking on Monday, Sunak said he was “humbled and honored” to have been chosen as leader. “It is the greatest privilege of my life to be able to serve the party I love and give back to the country I owe so much to,” he said in a brief televised statement.

He warned that the UK faces a “profound economic challenge,” adding that the country needed “stability and unity.”

On Tuesday morning, Truss delivered her outgoing speech at the Downing Street podium before making the short car journey to Buckingham Palace.

Despite a disastrous tenure which saw her become Britain’s shortest serving prime minister in history, Truss appeared full of confidence and smiling, as she called her time in office a “huge honor,” later adding that “brighter days lie ahead.”

“We simply cannot afford to be a low growth country where the government takes up an increasing share of our national wealth, and where there are huge divides between different parts of our country,” Truss said on the economy. “We need to take advantage of our Brexit freedoms to do things differently. This means delivering more freedom for our own citizens and restoring power to democratic institutions.”

Truss concluded by wishing Sunak “every success for the good of our country.”

Sunak is expected to give his first speech as prime minister outside Downing Street later.

It’s a stunning turnaround for the man whose resignation as finance minister brought down Boris Johnson’s government earlier this year, but then lost the summer leadership race.

After Truss’s premiership imploded last week, Sunak quickly became a frontrunner to take over the party. But he now faces an overflowing in-tray of challenges.

His own party is divided and has lost ground to the opposition Labour party in opinion polls following four months of political turmoil and financial market chaos. At the same time, Britain is facing major economic crisis, with many economists believing it is already in recession.

He is also already under intense fire from opposition politicians, who are calling for a general election. Sunak, like Truss, has not had to win a general election to become prime minister because the Conservatives are still the largest party in the House of Commons, therefore their leader automatically becomes prime minister.

It’s not unusual for a prime minister to come into office without an election — four of the last five British prime ministers first entered the role without a general election. But the fact that Sunak is the UK’s third prime minister since the last poll in 2019 and the second to come into power without a public vote adds to the pressure.

Sunak is under no obligation to call a vote. According to the law, the next general election must happen no later than in January 2025. With Labour way ahead in opinion polls, it is very unlikely he will take that step.

This story was first published on CNN.com, “Rishi Sunak becomes UK’s third prime minister in seven weeks.”