Hishammuddin Hussein

Hishammuddin bin Tun Hussein (Jawi: هشام الدين بن حسين; born 5 August 1961) is a Malaysian politician and lawyer who served as Senior Minister of the Security Cluster and Minister of Defence from 2021 to 2022.

Hishammuddin was born on 5 August 1961, the fourth child and the eldest son of Hussein Onn, who became the third Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Suhaila Noah.

He is the grandson of Onn Jaafar, a prominent Malay leader and the founder of UMNO, whose mother was a Circassian and born in the Ottoman Empire.

Hishammuddin attended the Malay College Kuala Kangsar before his father became Deputy Prime Minister in 1973.

Upon his father's appointment to the office, he attended St. John's Institution, and then the Alice Smith School, in Kuala Lumpur, before attending the English public school Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire.

Hishammuddin graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1984.

He also attended the London School of Economics and received a Master of Laws (LLM) degree in Commercial and Corporate Law in 1988.

After completing his studies in UK, Hishammuddin returned to Malaysia in 1989.

He joined UMNO and began his career as a lawyer.

He became a partner of Skrine & Co (present day Skrine), the largest law firm in Malaysia.

Hishammuddin rose through the ranks of UMNO's youth wing in the 1990s, becoming its national chief in 1998.

He assumed the position at a time when UMNO Youth had been torn apart by the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was popular among young UMNO members.

Hishammuddin's predecessor, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, had been a core supporter of Anwar.

In 1993, he left Skrine & Co to set up his own law firm with Thomas Mun Lung Lee, and the established law firm was known as Lee Hishammuddin (present day Lee Hishammuddin Allen & Gledhill).

He was first elected to Dewan Rakyat in the 1995 election, winning the seat of Tenggara.

In 1995, Hishammuddin had been elected to the federal parliament for the Johor-based seat of Tenggara.

He was immediately appointed as Parliamentary Secretary for International Trade and Industry in the government of Mahathir Mohamad.

His rise to the leadership of UMNO Youth in 1998 coincided with his elevation to the full ministry the following year, as the Minister for Youth and Sport.

He was later appointed deputy minister and was promoted to full minister in 1999.

In 1999, he was elected as UMNO's youth chief, and subsequently as its vice president in 2009.

He retained his parliamentary seat in the 1999 election.

A member of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, he has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for Sembrong since 2004, having previously been an MP for Tenggara from 1995 to 2004.

Hishammuddin was born in Johor Bahru to Hussein Onn and Suhailah Noah.

His father was the third prime minister of Malaysia.

He attended Malay College Kuala Kangsar, St. John's Institution, Alice Smith School, and Cheltenham College.

He then graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from Aberystwyth University and a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics before working as a lawyer.

After making partner at Scrine, he started his own firm, Lee Hishammuddin, which later merged with Allen and Gledhill to form Lee Hishammuddin Allen and Gledhill.

On his return from UK, Hishammuddin joined UMNO.

In 2004, the Barisan Nasional government, now led by Abdullah Badawi, was returned to power with Hishammuddin holding the newly created seat of Sembrong.

Hishammuddin was re-elected as the leader of UMNO Youth and appointed Minister for Education.

In 2009, the resignation of Abdullah Badawi as prime minister caused a shake-up in UMNO's senior leadership.

Najib Razak, Hishammuddin's cousin, became UMNO's president and the prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin became Najib's deputy in both the party and the government, and the three UMNO vice-presidencies were up for election.

Hishammuddin, vacating the leadership of UMNO Youth, contested the vice-presidencies, finishing in second place in an eight-man field.

He was also appointed as the Minister of Defence, an office he had held previously from 2013 to 2018.

Since then, he has held various ministerial positions until the defeat of BN in the 2018 election.

Despite the defeat, he managed to retain his Sembrong seat.

At the beginning of the political crisis that started in 2020, Hishammuddin returned to the cabinet as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition led by Muhyiddin Yassin.

Amid the worsening political crisis in July 2021, Muhyiddin appointed Hishammuddin as Senior Minister of Security Cluster to replace Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister.

He briefly served in the office until August 2021, after Muhyiddin announced his resignation.

Two weeks after that, Hishammuddin returned again to the cabinet under new Prime Minister Ismail Sabri, who re-appointed him as senior minister.