Former British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday won the first round of voting to elect the next Conservative leader and prime minister of the country, the BBC reported.
The voting was necessitated after Boris Johnson announced his resignation as prime minister on July 7.
Sunak, the son of Indian immigrants, secured 88 votes in the first round of voting by Conservative Party MPs, which narrowed down the race from eight to six candidates on the shortlist, according to Reuters.
Among those in the race include Conservative leaders Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemic Badenoch, Tom Tugendhar and Suella Braverman. Finance minister Nadhim Zahawi and former cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt were eliminated.
The next round of voting is scheduled for Thursday, when the field of candidates will be narrowed down to two, following which a vote will be held by around 1,60,000 members of the Conservative party to decide the winning candidate, according to the BBC.
The final result will be announced on September 5.
After the announcement of the results on Wednesday, Sunak told the BBC he felt great about the outcome of the first round.
Sunak had announced his bid to run for the leadership post last week.
“I’m standing to be the next leader of the Conservative Party and your Prime Minister,” he had said in a tweet on July 8. “Let’s restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country.”
The 42-year-old MP and the son-in-law of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy had resigned as Britain’s finance minister on July 5, plunging Johnson’s government into a crisis.
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