Charles Appoints Rishi Sunak As Second U.K. Prime Minister of His Reign

King Charles III appointed Conservative party leader Rishi Sunak as Britain's new prime minister on Tuesday, in a formal ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

The appointment marked the first of the new king's reign, with former leader Liz Truss also making a trip to the palace to formally resign from the position she took up less than three months ago.

Truss was the last prime minister to be appointed by Queen Elizabeth II who, too ill to travel south to London, performed the official "kissing hands" ceremony from Balmoral Castle in Scotland where she would die just two days later at the age of 96.

Following the official mourning period and memorial events for the late queen, Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, unveiled a new "mini budget" positioned to ease the U.K. out of its economic downturn. This plan, which would have seen tax cuts for the country's richest citizens among its measures, caused widespread backlash, leading the pound to plummet and the state of the economy to worsen.

Kwarteng was fired but Truss could not regain the confidence of her party or the public. She notified the king of her resignation 44 days after her appointment, on October 20.

After a short leadership run, Sunak, formerly Boris Johnson's chancellor, was chosen by the Conservative party to replace Truss.

Sunak, who has a background in finance having studied at Stanford University as a Fulbright scholar, became a Member of Parliament in 2015. He is the country's first British-Asian prime minister and the first to be a practicing Hindu.

The new prime minister was asked by the king to form a government in his name, as is the custom in Britain where the government exercises power in the name of the constitutional monarch, in the 1844 room at Buckingham Palace.

The meeting is known as the "kissing hands" ceremony, though no kissing actually takes place. This comes from a traditional process whereby the prime minister was required to kiss the hands of the sovereign as a sign of loyalty and faithfulness. The holding of the meeting itself is now deemed as the fulfilling of this obligation.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams highlighted that though Charles officially appoints the new prime minister, as a constitutional monarch in the modern day, he is removed from the official leader selection which is left to the political parties themselves.

"Receiving a new prime minister when advised by his or her predecessor that they can command the support of the Commons is a constitutionally significant duty of the monarch," he told Newsweek.

"The monarch first gives an audience to the outgoing prime minister. Great care is taken by the Palace that the monarch acts on advice and so is personally removed from the choice in the event of a hung Parliament, which might be controversial, as it is pivotal that the monarch's role is above party politics."

Sunak is Charles' second prime minister, and first appointment. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, had 15 prime ministers throughout her 70-year reign. The first, in 1952, was Sir Winston Churchill.

Unless called earlier through a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons or by the prime minister himself, Britain's next general election will not be held until 2025. This means that Sunak will likely be the leader in power at the time of Charles' coronation, planned to take place on May 6, 2023.

Though the coronation is a religious ceremony not a governmental one, Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, are expected to be among the invited guests at Westminster Abbey.

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