Liz Truss Is Elected As Leader Of The Leader Of The Conservative Party As Well As The UK PM

Liz Truss while in Bali. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Aditya Karno)

JAKARTA - Liz Truss is to be elected as leader of the Conservative Party, as well as the new British Prime Minister, amid the cost of living crisis, industrial unrest, and the current recession in the country.

The announcement of who will be the UK PM to replace Boris Johnson will be made at 11:30 a.m. GMT, after Trus's intense rivalry with former finance minister Rishi Sunak for weeks.

On Tuesday, the winner will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth II, who will ask a new leader to form a government.

The winner is set to become the Conservatives' fourth prime minister since the 2015 election. During that period, the UK has been hit by multiple crises, now facing what is expected to be a long recession, fueled by inflation rocketing to 10.1 percent in July.

Serving as foreign secretary under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Truss has vowed to act quickly to tackle Britain's cost of living crisis.

She said she would come up with a plan to tackle the rising energy bill within a week, securing future fuel supplies.

Speaking in a TV interview on Sunday, she declined to give details of measures she said would reassure millions of people who fear they will not be able to pay their fuel bills.

She has signaled during her leadership campaign that she will challenge convention by scrapping tax hikes and cutting other levies that some economists say will fuel inflation.

That, plus a promise to review the Bank of England's powers while protecting its independence, caused some investors to dump pounds and government bonds.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies last month cast doubt on the UK's next prime minister having room for large, permanent tax cuts.

If elected, Truss faces a long, expensive and difficult task list, which opposition lawmakers say is the result of 12 years of poor Conservative rule.

Meanwhile, veteran Conservative MP David Davis described the challenges Truss will face as prime minister, 'perhaps the second most difficult of post-war prime ministers', after Conservative Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

"I don't really think any of the candidates, none of those who went through it, really knew how big this was going to be," Davis said, adding that the cost could be in the tens of billions of pounds.

Truss said he would appoint a strong cabinet, ruling out what a source close to him called the "presidential style" of the government.