Khairy Jamaluddin

Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar (خيري جمال الدين, ; born 10 January 1976) often referred to by his initials KJ, is a Malaysian politician, radio presenter and podcaster.

Alongside being a radio presenter for Hot FM, he hosts Keluar Sekejap with Shahril Hamdan, a podcast in which they discuss Malaysian politics and current affairs with a variety of guests.

Khairy is also one of the Members of the Board and Youth Advisor at JDT, as well as a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

He most recently served as Minister of Health in the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration under former Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob from August 2021 to November 2022.

In 1998, he completed his master's degree in Legal and Political Theory at UCL.

After leaving university, Khairy worked as a journalist for a period.

He served as a presenter on the talkshow Dateline Malaysia.

He also had a stint working for The Economist in 1999.

Thereafter, Khairy became a Special Officer in the office of Abdullah Badawi, who was then the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia.

He was Abdullah's Deputy Principal Private Secretary from 2003 to 2004.

He was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He has written for major publications including The Economist, Time and the Wall Street Journal.

He became closely involved in football during his pre-parliamentary career.

He holds a number of high-profile positions in the Malaysian football scene, and is involved in a number of football-related associations.

Under the prime ministership of his father-in-law (2003–2009), Khairy rose to prominence within UMNO and Malaysian politics generally.

He became the deputy chief of UMNO's youth wing and served as a close personal adviser to Abdullah.

Khairy's perceived influence on Abdullah made both men a target for criticism, including from Abdullah's predecessor Mahathir Mohamad.

On this allegation, Khairy replied that "I am a pretty easy scapegoat. [But] the decisions Dr. Mahathir is unhappy with are entirely made by the Prime Minister and the cabinet."

In 2006, Khairy teamed-up with radio DJ Jason Lo (with whom he attended high school in Singapore) to produce the football-based reality TV show MyTeam.

On 9 September 2007, Khairy was chosen uncontested as the Vice-president of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) during the 44th FAM Congress, to serve from 2007 to 2010, replacing Tengku Mahkota Pahang then, Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah.

A former member of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), Khairy was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rembau from March 2008 to November 2022.

In the 2008 general election, Khairy was elected to the federal Parliament for the seat of Rembau in the state of Negeri Sembilan.

The following year he was elected as the Chief of UMNO Youth, defeating Khir Toyo and Mukhriz Mahathir.

In his first term in parliament, Khairy involved himself in contentious policy debates.

He expressed his view that Malaysia should repeal the Printing Presses and Publications Act, and abolish the annual Home Ministry licensing requirement, through the creation of an independent body which will enforce a self-regulatory mechanism of the system similar to the United Kingdom's Press Complaints Commission.

He also spoke against the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission's blocking of the popular and often anti-government website Malaysia Today, citing that the move was a "blatant and crude employment of state power" and "is inconsistent with the widening roads of democratic highways."

He also called for an end to the Mahathir-era policy of teaching science and maths in English.

In September 2008, Khairy called for the reversal of the policy, citing that the policy had failed and only caused burden to students.

He was the Youth Chief of UMNO from March 2009 to June 2018.

He served as Minister of Youth and Sports in the BN administration under former Prime Minister Najib Razak from May 2013 to May 2018.

After the 2020 Malaysian political crisis, Khairy took on the role of Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration under former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin from March 2020 until August 2021, when the cabinet resigned.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia, Khairy took on the role of Coordinating Minister of the COVID-19 National Immunization Program (PICK) from February 2021 to August 2021, and later was Minister of Health.

Khairy lost his parliamentary seat in the 2022 general election where he was relocated to contest in Sungai Buloh, an urban Pakatan Harapan safe seat but managed to reduce the majority from 26,634 to 2,693.

Khairy is the only son of a former diplomat, Dato' Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, a Malay of Minangkabau descent and Datin Dato' Rahmah Abdul Hamid, an ethnic Malay housewife of Kedahan ancestry.

His late father, Jamaluddin was a senior diplomatic officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, retiring as the Malaysian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Dato' Jamaluddin has since died of throat cancer.

Khairy's mother, Rahmah Abdul Hamid, has been heavily involved in volunteer work throughout her life although she was a housewife and never had an employment history, whilst his late paternal grandfather, Abu Bakar, was a community leader in his hometown of Kampung Kota, Rembau.

Khairy was born in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

He had his secondary education at the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore and furthered his tertiary studies at Oxford University and University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom.

While at Oxford, he studied at St Hugh's College, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).