Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are the final two candidates in a closely fought race to succeed Boris Johnson as UK’s next prime minister.
Former Finance Minister Sunak maintained his lead, winning 137 votes, while Foreign Secretary Truss came in second with 113 votes.
Johnson resigned as party leader after a series of scandals led to dozens of ministerial resignations. The UK is not going for a general election because the Conservative Party is already in power.
Truss and Sunak will now go head-to-head to be named leader of the U.K.’s Conservative Party and the next prime minister.
Both candidates took to Twitter to comment on the result.
“Thank you for putting your trust in me. I’m ready to hit the ground running from day one,” Truss tweeted.
Sunak said he was “Grateful that my colleagues have put their trust in me today. I will work night and day to deliver our message around the country,” tweeted Sunak.
Now about 160,000 party members (or about 0.3% of the total UK electorate) will elect the next prime minister in a postal ballot. UK’s new prime minister will be announced in September.
Who is Rishi Sunak?
Rishi Sunak is believed to be one of the richest MPs. He has been the Conservative MP for Richmond in Yorkshire since 2015 and became a junior minister in Theresa May’s government. He later served as chief secretary to the Treasury by Boris Johnson. He was promoted to chancellor in February 2020. He was a vocal supporter of Johnson but later resigned.
Born in Southampton in 1980, Sunak is the son of an Indian doctor and pharmacist who were born in east Africa and migrated to Britain in the 1960s.
His wife Akshata Murthy is the daughter of Narayana Murthy, an Indian billionaire and co-founder of IT services giant Infosys. The couple, who have two daughters, met at Stanford and married in 2009. Sunak was a “multimillionaire in his mid-twenties”, according to The Times, but he has never commented publicly on how much he is worth.
He attended the exclusive private school Winchester College and also has an MBA from Stanford University. Before joining the government, he served as an analyst at the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Who is Liz Truss?
Truss, 46, is a favorite among many Conservatives. As foreign secretary, Truss has been front and center in Britain’s support for Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia over the invasion of its neighbor.
Born in Oxford in 1975, Truss is the daughter of a math professor and a nurse. Truss attended a public high school in Leeds, northern England, and then studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University.
She worked as an accountant for energy giant Shell and telecommunications firm Cable and Wireless.
She was the Tory candidate in the 2001 and 2005 general elections but was unsuccessful twice before being elected to represent the eastern England seat of Southwest Norfolk in 2010.
Two years after becoming an MP, she entered government as an education minister in 2012. She was later appointed environment minister (2014–16), lord chancellor (2016-17), chief secretary to the Treasury (2017-19), international trade minister (2019-21), equalities minister (2019–present), foreign secretary (2021–present).
Truss is married to Hugh O’Leary, with whom she has two teenage daughters.
If Truss wins, she would become Britain’s third female prime minister.