The race for Downing Street continues.

Six candidates are still in the running, Wednesday, July 13, to succeed the British Prime Minister;

Boris Johnson, after a first round of voting where Conservative MPs put ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak in the lead.

Nearly a week after the announcement of the resignation of Boris Johnson, swept away by a series of scandals, two of the eight contenders have been eliminated from the race to succeed him at the head of the Conservative party and ultimately in Downing Street. 

Ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak, 42, whose resignation last week helped spark a haemorrhage of executive departures, landed 88 votes, according to results reported by Graham Brady, who leads the committee that organizes the internal ballot.

>> To read also: "United Kingdom: Boris Johnson, the scandal machine"

Little known to the general public but on the rise, Secretary of State for International Trade Penny Mordaunt came second with 67 votes, ahead of Foreign Minister Liz Truss (50 votes).

A second round of votes is due to be held on Thursday, the aim being to designate the two finalists before the end of next week.

The winner, elected by party members – 160,000 voters in the last internal election of 2019 – should be known on September 5.

According to a YouGov poll on Wednesday of Conservative voters, Penny Mordaunt would come out on top in voting intentions and beat all her rivals in the event of a duel.

Leaving "head held high"

Launching her campaign on Wednesday, Penny Mordaunt, 49, compared the Tories to Beatles legend Paul McCartney at Glastonbury Festival.

"We indulged in all these new tunes, but what we really wanted was the good old hit that we knew the lyrics to: low tax, low state, personal responsibility," she said. declared.

Other candidates still in the running, mostly largely unknown to the general public, are MP Tom Tugendhat, Government Legal Adviser ("Attorney General") Suella Braverman, ex-Secretary of State for Equality Kemi Badenoch .

New Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi and former Health Minister Jeremy Hunt were eliminated on Wednesday.

Boris Johnson resigned on July 7 after around 60 members of his executive slammed the door, tired of repeated scandals and his lies.

However, he remains Prime Minister until his successor is known.

Facing the deputies in the House of Commons, he said he was "proud" of his record on Wednesday.

“It is absolutely true that I am leaving at a time that I did not choose,” he regretted during the weekly question session before Parliament, which was particularly rowdy.

"But I leave with my head held high".

In this campaign as bitter as it is unpredictable, the candidates work hard to convince the deputies in meetings which take place behind closed doors.

Several were thus auditioned on Wednesday by Conservative MPs.

Several televised debates are also planned in the coming days.

Three favorites 

The campaign, which is aimed solely at members of the Conservative party, is clearly marked on the right and brings together its share of low blows and controversy.

Among the heavyweights, Rishi Sunak is the subject of virulent attacks from the Johnson camp, which accuses him of having led the Prime Minister to his downfall by launching the wave of resignations on July 4.

Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, a fervent supporter of Boris Johnson, thus described him as a "socialist" former chancellor.

False, retorts the interested party who considers that his economic approach is “Thatcherite common sense”, in reference to the former ultraliberal Prime Minister.

Boris Johnson's faithful prefer another admirer of Thatcher: Liz Truss, who remained in government despite the massive bleeding last week.

The appointment of the new Prime Minister comes amid a cost of living crisis, with British households strangled by inflation, at 9.1%, even as the country's GDP rebounded 0.5% in May.

If the government is to remain in office until the new leader is appointed, it has decided to present a motion of no confidence against itself.

Sure of a failure of such a vote, the government was thus responding to a motion tabled Tuesday by the opposition which considers it "intolerable" that Boris Johnson remains in power until September.

This motion was refused by the government, considering it inappropriate to vote for a resigning Prime Minister.

With AFP

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