LONDON: Former British finance minister Rishi Sunak won the most votes in the first round of voting to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, as two candidates were eliminated.
Sunak scored 88 votes, ahead of junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt on 67 and foreign Secretary Liz Truss on 50. Finance minister Nadhim Zahawi and former cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt were eliminated. Lawmaker Kemi Badenoch received 40 votes, Tom Tugendhat received 37 and Suella Braverman received 32.
Meanwhile, Conservative lawmakers voted on Wednesday to narrow the field of eight candidates hoping to succeed Boris Johnson as party leader and prime minister, in an increasingly fractious contest marked by the hopefuls trading barbs.
Three of the 11 initial challengers for the premiership fell away on Tuesday after failing to secure enough support from their colleagues, but the contest remains crowded.
Rishi Sunak, whose resignation as finance minister last week helped precipitate Johnson's fall, is the bookmakers' favourite and has the most public support among lawmakers. His successor Nadhim Zahawi and foreign minister Liz Truss are also among the remaining candidates.
Less familiar figures such as former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt have won notable support from other senior lawmakers and are popular with the party's members, who will ultimately decide the winner.
A YouGov poll of 800 of the about 200,000 members found Mordaunt, a former defence minister but less well-known among the public at large, would beat any of the others in a run-off and had a huge lead over Sunak who fared badly against almost all his rivals.
On Wednesday, the remaining candidates will each have to secure 30 votes from the party's 358 Members of Parliament (MPs) to get through to the next round of voting, while the candidate with the fewest backers will be eliminated regardless.
Whoever wins will face a daunting in-tray while having to rebuild public trust bruised by a series of scandals involving Johnson, from the breaking of Covid-19 lockdown rules to appointing a lawmaker to government despite having been told of allegations of misconduct.
"I am... proud of the leadership I have given and I will be leaving soon with my head held high'', Johnson, who is not endorsing any successor, told parliament. — Reuters
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