UK’s Ex-finance Minister Tops First Vote to Be Next PM

By Staff, Agencies

Former British finance minister Rishi Sunak won the biggest backing from Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday in the first vote to choose who will succeed Boris Johnson as party leader and British prime minister.

Sunak secured support from 88 of the party's 358 parliament members. Junior Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt came second with 67 votes and Foreign Minister Liz Truss was third with 50.

The list of candidates was narrowed down from eight to six as Nadhim Zahawi, who took over as finance minister from Sunak last week, and former foreign minister Jeremy Hunt were knocked out after failing to get the required minimum of 30 votes. They join three other contenders who dropped out the day before.

Those remaining - including former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, Attorney General Suella Braverman, and Tom Tugendhat, chair of the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee - will go through to a second round on Thursday.

Subsequent ballots will be held among the Conservative lawmakers, eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes each time, to whittle the field down to a final two by July 21.

The new leader will then be chosen from those two by the 200,000 Conservative party members in the country at large and be announced on September 5.