UNITED KINGDOM: While former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak topped the voting charts with an impressive lead of 115 votes, he was followed behind by Foreign Secretary Penny Mordaunt at 82 votes. In the third position was Foreign Secretary Liz Truss with 71 votes and former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch with 58 votes.
Tom Tugendhat, an obscure Tory member and chair of the Tory House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, slid out of the race as his tally reduced by one vote and fell to a disappointing 31 total.
While Sunak was a consistent favourite, topping nearly all polling charts, on the bookies’ chart, Mordaunt was a winner, followed by Sunak and then Truss.Liz Truss who joined the PM race last week, came in hot as she continued to compete in this bitter race, citing her plans to reduce inflation as she reviewed the Bank of England’s measures on monetary policy.
Seeing as inflation has become a hot debate topic that could garner more votes, Kemi Badenoch has also picked it up, criticising the government for undue scrutiny of the BoE at a time when the inflation of 9.1% is far above its 2% target.
Former UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak topped the voting charts as Conservative Party members of the Parliament voted Sunak to replace Johnson as Prime Minister.
The former finance minister, British-Indian Sunak received 115 votes in the third round of voting, leading by a huge margin and crushing next-in-line runner-up, Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt. Sunak has garnered 14 more votes since his last round, where his numbers tally up to 101.
Mordaunt was followed by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in the third position with 71 votes and former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch with 58 votes.
The ultimate prize seems to be a total of 120 votes of the Conservative Party parliamentarians that will give the candidate a guaranteed shot in the grand finale where two contenders will battle it out for the Tory membership votes.
The next round of voting is expected to be held on Tuesday to narrow down the contending names with votes scheduled so that only two remain in the race by Thursday.
The semi-finalists will then fight to win over Conservative Party’s membership of around 16,000 eligible voters so that they cast postal ballots in their favour.
The announcement for the new Tory leader and PM will be made on September 5.
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