Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak maintained his lead at the UK prime ministerial race on Thursday after he won the most votes at 101 in the second round of voting to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.
Sunak took a lead with 101 votes, followed by junior trade minister and bookmakers’ favourite Penny Mordaunt on 83 votes and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on 64 votes. Attorney General Suella Braverman was eliminated with 27 votes. Lawmaker Tom Tugendhat received 32 votes and Kemi Badenoch received 49 votes.
Sunak had also won the biggest backing from Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday in the first round of voting. Sunak, whose resignation as finance minister last week helped trigger Johnson’s resignation, secured support from 88 of the party’s 358 Members of Parliament (MPs) followed by Penny Mordaunt second with 67 votes and Liz Truss third with 50.
Nadhim Zahawi, who took over as finance minister from Sunak last week, and former foreign minister Jeremy Hunt were eliminated after failing to get the required minimum of 30 votes.
After the first round, Sunak who is also Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy’s son-in-law, had told the BBC he feels great about the result.
Meanwhile, Conservative Party members which will have the final say is also building momentum behind Penny Mordaunt.
According to the timetable set by the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, the deadline to whittle down the shortlist to just two remaining candidates is July 21. The new leader will then be chosen the final two by the estimated 200,000 Conservative Party members in the country. The candidate who receives the most votes will be elected the new Conservative Party and British Prime Minister leader on September 5, taking over from Boris Johnson.
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