The race to succeed
Boris Johnson
as
Tory leader
and
future British premier
is narrowed to 5 survivors , after the second ballot conducted today among the deputies of the majority party and the elimination of the latest arrival: the attorney general
Suella Braverman
.
Rishi Sunak
,
Penny Mordaunt
,
Liz Truss
,
Kemi Badenoch
and
Tom Tugendhat
remain in contention - in order of preference
.
With the former chancellor Sunak and the former defense minister Mordaunt still in front of the foreign holder Truss in the match to arrive next week in the final two-handed ballot: to be then entrusted to the vote of the members by 5 September.
The chairman of the 1922 Committee, the electoral body within the Tory group in the House of Commons,
Graham Brady
, specified that today 356 of the 358 majority deputies entitled to vote by secret ballot.
Sunak
, 42, of Indian family origins, an
early Brexit pro
, but also able to speak to centrist sectors of the party, has risen over 100 from yesterday's 88 votes: reaching 101 and consolidating himself at this point as an almost certain pretender to one of the places up for grabs for the final ballot, as well as as the first aspiring British premier from an ethnic minority of non-European roots.
Behind him
, however, is strengthened by Mordaunt
, 49, historical brexiteer in turn and darling of the subscriber base according to the polls, which grows from 67 to 83 votes.
And it extends by two more votes on
Truss
, more accredited by the establishment at the beginning, which for its part earns something compared to the 50 preferences of yesterday but for now it stops at 64: despite the ultraliberal platform illustrated today with great fanfare, the support from part of the inner right and the low blows reserved by his allies for the rampant Penny.
But that you could recover, if nothing else, part of the votes lost today to Braverman (which fell from 32 to 28 supporters between yesterday and today), an expression of the most radical right wing.
Finally, among the outsiders, the surprising Kemi Badenoch remains clinging to the game, 42-year-old deputy minister of Nigerian parents who is also no stranger to the new right-wing Tory, hoisted from 40 to 49 votes that could help her eventually become a sort of Queen Maker;
as well as the president of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tungendhat, a former career soldier and former Remainer who survived, however at the end of the race being the only one (apart from the excluded Braverman) to have lost votes since yesterday (from 37 to 32).
