Awang Faroek Iskhak

Ishak was born in Tenggarong on 31 July 1948. He is the eleventh child of thirteen siblings from couple of Awang Ishak and Dayang Johariah.

Ishak studied at the Malang Teachers' Institute (IKIP Malang, today State University of Malang) for a bachelor's degree of social education in 1973.

During his term as the first regent of East Kutai, he inaugurated the launching of public broadcast service TV Kutim in 2003. Awang Faroek Ishak shortly resigned from the office in 2003 to run as a candidate for governor of East Kalimantan, although he lost in a vote inside the Regional House of Representatives of East Kalimantan against incumbent Suwarna Abdul Fatah. Nonetheless, he returned as a regent of East Kutai following a local election in 2005.

Ishak re-took the Regent position from Mahyudin after winning the East Kalimantan gubernatorial election in 2008 in two rounds. In the first round, Ishak and his running mate Farid Wadjdy won first place, defeating Achmad Amins and Jusuf SK. But because Ishak did not poll strongly enough to win outright (less than the 30% of the ballot needed to be declared the winner), the KPU (Election Committee) declared that a second round would be necessary with Ishak and Achmad Amins as the two runoff candidates.

In 2018, he declared his intention to run for the People's Representative Council, resigning from the governorship on 18 September. He won a seat as a NasDem Party legislator, but was not reelected for another term in 2024.