Race to replace Boris Johnson to the last 3 contenders

London (AFP) – The fierce race to succeed Boris Johnson As the British Prime Minister entered an unexpected final stage on Tuesday, leaving three candidates for the Conservative Party leader to compete for the two places in the run-off.

Kimi Badenouch, a previously unknown lawmaker who has become a rising star on the party’s right wing, was disqualified from the competition after receiving the fewest votes from Tory MPs in the fourth round of voting.

After a recent vote ousted Badenoch, former Treasurer Rishi Sunak led the shrinking field of candidates and secured his spot in the latter pair. Commerce Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Secretary of State Liz Truss, who were neck-and-neck behind him, will now seek to woo Badenouche’s supporters before the final vote on the abolition on Wednesday.

Everyone is running to succeed Johnson, who then resigned as party leader this month Escalating moral scandals It sparked mass resignations in his government.

The two finalists will go to a second round of voting for all 180,000 Conservative Party memberswith the winner expected to be announced on September 5th.

Sunak received 118 votes on Tuesday, less than the number that guarantees he is one of the two candidates that Conservative Party members can choose. Mordaunt had 92 votes, Gears 86, and Badenoch 59.

The remaining candidates are also courting supporters of Tom Tugendhat, an influential lawmaker who was eliminated from the competition on Monday.

Both Mordaunt and Badenouche tweeted praise for Tugendhat after Monday’s vote. Truss has promised to increase military spending from 2% to 3% of GDP – a major issue for Tugendhat, the ex-soldier who chairs the House of Commons foreign affairs committee.

The bitter campaign exposed deep divisions within the Conservative Party at the end of Johnson’s scandal-tainted era. Opponents gathered on Sunak over tax increases in response to the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Sunak responded by saying his rivals were spreading economic “fairy tales”.

In a contest where every vote counts, the voter turnout was reduced from 358 Conservative lawmakers Tuesday to 357. Tobias Ellwood, a Johnson critic who supports Mordaunt, was suspended from the partisan group in Parliament for failing to vote on Monday’s confidence motion.

The government easily won the vote thanks to a large Conservative majority, but Elwood was punished for not cutting a trip to Moldova to get back there.

Ellwood, who chairs Parliament’s defense committee, said he was unable to return “due to unprecedented disruption here and in the UK”, as a heat wave adds to the travel chaos in the summer.

“I am very sorry to lose the whip, but I will now continue my meetings in Ukraine to advance the Prime Minister’s efforts here and specifically seek to secure the reopening of the Odessa port – so vital grain exports can resume,” said Ellwood.

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