Sunak walks down a London street. /
The attacks begin to achieve the second position in the elections of the parliamentary group
Rishi Sunak, former Minister of Finance in the Government of Boris Johnson, has been confirmed this week as the candidate preferred by the largest number of conservative deputies to succeed him. In the second vote of the electoral process held this Thursday they gave him 101 votes, adding 13 with respect to the first. The event eliminated the State Attorney General, Suella Braverman, from the race.
Sunak advances, but surprise candidate Penny Mordaunt pushes harder. On Wednesday she revealed herself as the surprise candidate, achieving 67 votes and the second position. A few hours later she has added 83, less than Sunak but representing a higher jump, 17 votes, than the rival who now seems better placed.
The third in contention, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, launched her campaign on Thursday morning, presenting herself as a suitable person to be head of government. “I can lead, I can make tough decisions,” she said. The daughter of radical Labor parents, she voted in 2016 to remain in the European Union, but immediately accepted the result.
She has been a minister longer than any other candidate. She has sat in the cabinets of David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. She has held positions with technical demands, such as Head of the Treasury Secretariat. She has clearly promoted herself as a future leader and has made mistakes in the tone or triumphalism of some of her speeches, which have portrayed her as a somewhat strange person.
Truss received 50 votes on Wednesday and 64 this Thursday. In the race to be second to the final two candidates, she has advanced more slowly than Mordaunt, but will likely benefit from the 27 she received in the second round from Suella Braverman. The grouping of supporters on the right, understood as tax cuts and ‘hard Brexit’, may favor Truss.
Frost and her second
The electoral process resumes on Monday and voting will be organized every day, with the intention of eliminating at least one voter in each count. With five survivors this week, the logical thing is that next Wednesday the two candidates who will be presented to the members of the Conservative Party to elect the new leader and prime minister will be known.
Former military officer Tom Tugendhat, a politically moderate congressman who is highly critical of Johnson, won 37 votes on Wednesday and 32 on Thursday. It is not clear where the endorsements can come from so as not to be eliminated on Monday. Another deputy more popular than what was thought, Kemi Badenoch, went from 40 to 49, the largest percentage increase in support with respect to those obtained in the first vote.
David Frost, a prominent ‘Brexit’ negotiator with the European Commission, has launched a vicious attack on Mordaunt. It was his second and he had to ask Johnson to put someone else because, according to what the now lord says, she was his assistant only in name. «He did not understand the details, he did not transmit the necessary harsh messages to Brussels, he disappeared and nobody knew where he was…».
Frost also said that he is listening very carefully to the candidates’ speeches, to decide who he will vote for. He has already publicly criticized Sunak’s policy, he now humiliates Mordaunt, and he is not a man of minority passions. He looks and sounds like a Truss election agent.
The ‘Tory’ deputies are now going away for the weekend, and there will be secret deals and lurid revelations in the press.