The duel for Johnson’s successor continues
Sunak and Truss run away

07/20/2022, 17:19

In Great Britain it is already clear who will start the duel to succeed Prime Minister Johnson. After the last vote at the parliamentary group level, former Treasury Secretary Sunak and Secretary of State Truss remained. Now the members of the party have the floor.

Former Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are in the UK’s runoff election to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This was announced by the conservative Tory party. Its members now have until early September to decide on the party’s new leader, who will then also take over as head of government.

In several rounds of elections for the party’s deputies, the field of candidates had gradually narrowed in recent days. After each round, the applicant with the worst performance was eliminated. Most recently, Foreign Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt participated alongside Sunak and Truss.

According to the Tory party, Sunak received 137 votes in Wednesday’s vote and 113 MPs voted for Truss. Mordaunt finished third with 105 votes and was voted out. The choice of Johnson’s successor now depends on the party’s roughly 200,000 members. They must decide by postal vote so that on September 5 the new party leader is appointed, who will later also become head of government.

Former Finance Minister Sunak led all rounds of MP voting; however, he appears less popular with the party’s rank and file: A YouGov poll of 725 Conservative Party members released Tuesday predicted the former Treasury secretary would lose both Truss and Mordaunt in the runoff.

Prime Minister Johnson was forced to resign as party leader on July 7 by an internal party revolt against his much-criticized leadership, which also meant the end of his government post. However, he intends to remain prime minister until his successor is named.