Eight Candidates For UK PM Candidates Pass To First Round Of Voting Today: Liz Truss And Nadhim Zahawi, Rishi Sunak Is The Favorite

Collage Nadhim Zahawi, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. (Wikimedia Commons/IAEA Imagebank/Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine/HM Treasury)

JAKARTA - Eight Conservative politicians will battle it out to replace Boris Johnson as party leader and British Prime Minister, having won enough nominations from their peers to qualify for the first round of voting on Wednesday.

Only two candidates failed to secure the required 20 nominations, leaving many candidates seeking to win party support with promises of tax cuts, honesty and serious governance.

Former finance minister Rishi Sunak is the favourite, and among those he will face are his successor Nadhim Zahawi and foreign minister Liz Truss.

Britain's next leader faces a daunting challenge while support for the Conservatives is also declining, polls show.

The UK economy is facing skyrocketing inflation, high debt and low growth as people grapple with the tightest strain on their finances in decades.

All of this is set against a backdrop of an energy crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine that has sent fuel prices soaring.

As the contest intensifies, rival campaigns increase personal criticism of one another, pointing to financial or other questions hanging over their opponents.

Sunak began his campaign by portraying himself as a serious candidate, promising 'adult honesty not a fairy tale', seeking to distinguish himself from the extensive tax cuts promised by most other candidates.

"It is not credible to promise more spending and lower taxes," Sunak said, saying tax cuts could only be made after soaring inflation could be contained.

As finance minister, Sunak put Britain on track to have its biggest tax burden since the 1950s, after he oversaw a huge increase in government spending during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, most of the other candidates have attacked him saying they will oversee the cuts. direct.

Sunak has the widest support among colleagues who openly express their views.

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While Penny Mordaunt, a junior commerce minister who also enjoys plenty of support, topped Conservative party member polls and she has also tried to strike a more measured tone on taxes, saying now is not the time to cut government spending.

"Others are obviously going to be trying to secure votes, they're going to be trying to set up beacons for certain caucuses," he told LBC radio.

"This is not the time to make radical tax policies and promises," he said.

As for Attorney General Suella Braverman; former health and foreign ministers Jeremy Hunt; Tom Tugendhat, chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee; and Kemi Badenoch, a former junior minister who garnered support on the party's far right, are other candidates to enter the first round of the contest.

Transport Minister Grant Shapps had previously been the first candidate to end his candidacy, casting his support behind Sunak, while Home Affairs Minister Priti Patel announced he would not be running.

Secretary of State Truss has the support of the two ministers closest to Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who have both criticized Sunak.

Dorries accused Sunak of using 'dirty tricks' to manipulate the leadership contest, with the vote lent to Hunt's campaign because they saw him as easier to beat. The Sunak team did not respond to requests for comment.

Lawmakers from the 1922 Conservative Committee that organized the contest said the competition would soon be reduced by repeated voting in the next few weeks, with the last two then being voted on by less than 200.000 party members on July 21.

The winner of the election, the party leader and Britain's new prime minister, will be announced on September 5.

Separately, the opposition Labor Party said the government had "gone into fright" after blocking efforts to hold a no-confidence motion in Boris Johnson on Wednesday, to force him to step down immediately.

Meanwhile, the government said Labor was trying to "play politics" and it would allow Labor to hold a vote of no confidence if the wording of the motion was changed to remove references to Johnson.