Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt are ahead after the first round of voting in the Conservative Party leadership race.
Six candidates remain in the race to replace UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson after the first round of voting, the Conservative Party announced, with Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi and former Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt removed .
Rishi Sunak, who left the post of finance minister last week to bring about Johnson’s downfall, leads the group with the support of 88 members of the Conservative parliament, followed by 67-year-old Penny Mordaunt, whose polls show most popular among party members who will eventually decide. the race, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss with 50 votes.
Meanwhile, legislator Kemi Badenoch received 40 votes, Tom Tugendhat 37 and Suella Braverman 32.
The remaining contenders will now fight to pick up supporters of the two men in a contest that will replace the Johnson scandal with a much lesser-known new prime minister.
The 358 Conservative lawmakers had gathered in a damp hallway of Parliament on Wednesday afternoon to line up and vote in a large hall with oil paintings. Security personnel had them hand over their phones to ensure secrecy.
Eight candidates had secured the necessary support from 20 of their colleagues to cast the first ballot.
More rounds of voting will be held on Thursday and, if necessary, next week, until only two candidates remain.
‘The head high’
The last two candidates will face a second round of about 180,000 Conservative Party members across the country. The winner is scheduled to be announced on September 5 and will automatically become prime minister, with no need for national elections.
Candidates are struggling to replace Johnson, who resigned as Conservative leader last week amid a party revolt sparked by months of ethical scandals. He will continue in office as interim prime minister until his replacement is elected party leader.
Mordaunt, at the official launch of his campaign Wednesday, said the party had “standards and confidence to restore” after Johnson’s years bewitched by the scandal.
He said voters “are fed up with not fulfilling it, are fed up with broken promises and are fed up with divisive politics.”
The list of candidates is diverse, with four candidates from ethnic minorities and four women.
But they all offer promises of similar tax cuts, with only Sunak offering a note of caution. He has presented himself as the candidate for fiscal probity, saying the country needs “honesty and responsibility, not fairy tales” to overcome the economic shock waves of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Supporters of the other candidates have unlikely represented Sunak, whose heroine is former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, as a leftist. Johnson’s office has denied campaigning for Sunak, whose resignation last week helped end the prime minister’s reign.
A spokeswoman insisted Johnson remain neutral in the campaign to choose his replacement.
Johnson made a farewell note at the Prime Minister’s weekly questioning session in the House of Commons. He hinted that it could be his last appearance there, although he is expected to answer questions again next week, before Parliament’s summer break, and to leave office on 6 September.
“My next party leader can be elected by acclamation,” he told Labor leader Keir Starmer, though that would only happen if one of the last two candidates left. “So this may be our last showdown.”
Johnson said it was “true that I’m not leaving at the time I choose,” but insisted, “I’ll be leaving with my head held high soon.”