Rishi Sunak wins first vote as successor to Boris Johnson – El Financiero

LONDON.- The former British finance secretary Rishi Sunak won the strongest support from Conservative lawmakers in the first vote to elect the Boris Johnson’s successor as party leader and UK prime minister, while two other rivals were eliminated.

Sunak, whose resignation as finance secretary last week helped precipitate Johnson’s downfall, won the support of 88 of the party’s 358 lawmakers, while Commerce Secretary Penny Mordaunt came in second with 67 votes. and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, in third, with 50.

Nadhim Zahawi, who replaced Sunak as finance minister, and former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt were eliminated, failing to get the required minimum of 30 votes. They join three other hopefuls who dropped out of the race the day before.

The rest –including former Equality Secretary Kemi Badenoch, prosecutor Suella Braverman, and Tom Tugendhat, chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee– They will go to the next round.

The following votes will be held among Conservative lawmakers, eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes each time, to reduce the number of candidates to two before the July 21. The new leader will be chosen between these two by the 200,000 members of the Conservative Party in the country, and will be announced on September 5.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson said he will leave with “head held high”, but acknowledged to deputies that his departure, caused by an accumulation of scandals, occurs earlier than he would have liked.

In a discussion with the Labor opposition leader, Keir Starmer, who considered Johnson lost in his illusions “until the end”, Boris told his adversary that he never “came up with an idea or project for the country”.

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