Britain’s former finance minister Rishi Sunak has emerged as the front-runner to be the country’s next prime minister, after Boris Johnson dramatically dropped out of the race to be Conservative Party leader.
The current prime minister, Liz Truss, resigned last week after just six disastrous weeks in office. Graham Brady, the Conservative official responsible for the leadership contest, said a new prime minister would be in place by Friday.
Candidates to replace Truss have until 2 p.m. (9 a.m. ET) on Monday to secure the support of 100 Conservative Party lawmakers to enter the race to become the party – and the country’s – new leader.
Johnson’s decision to withdraw from the contest leaves Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, competing against Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt.
If both candidates secure the backing of 100 MPs, it will then be up to the roughly 172,000 members of the Conservative Party to pick the new leader in online voting.
As of Monday morning, Sunak was the only one of the pair to have met the necessary threshold of 100 nominations.
If Sunak remains the only one to have reached this number of backers, he will automatically become the Conservative Party’s new leader. The party’s parliamentary majority ensures he will also become the country’s next prime minister.
After days of speculation, Sunak officially declared he’d be standing in the contest on Sunday, writing on Twitter: “The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis. That’s why I am standing to be Leader of the Conservative Party and your next Prime Minister. I want to fix our economy, unite our Party and deliver for our country.
“There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead and I will work day in and day out to get the job done.”
Many of Johnson’s supporters have blamed Sunak for helping to oust Johnson from power in July in the wake of a series of scandals, but on Sunday evening he paid tribute to the former PM after he pulled out of the race.
“Boris Johnson delivered Brexit and the great vaccine roll-out. He led our country through some of the toughest challenges we have ever faced, and then took on Putin and his barbaric war in Ukraine. We will always be grateful to him for that,” Sunak tweeted. “Although he has decided not to run for PM again, I truly hope he continues to contribute to public life at home and abroad.”