Former British finance minister Rishi Sunak, it seems, could already become the new British prime minister today and take over that position from Liz Truss, after the spectacular withdrawal from the race of former prime minister Boris Johnson.
Johnson said in a statement last night that he has the necessary support from 100 MPs of his ruling Conservative Party to run for the new prime minister in the internal party process, but that he is giving up on it due to divisions in the party.
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"In the past few days, unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that it just wouldn't be right. You can't govern effectively if you don't have a united party in parliament," Johnson said.
Johnson stepped down as prime minister in early September after a number of scandals, and on Saturday returned from a vacation in the Caribbean to re-enter the prime ministerial race following the resignation of his successor, Liz Truss, after just 44 days at the head of the executive.
After the departure of Liz Trass, the conservative party announced a shortened procedure for electing a new party leader, who automatically becomes the prime minister, requiring that each candidate have the support of 100 colleagues in the parliament out of a total of 375 conservative deputies. This left the possibility for only three candidates. It was also determined that a new party leader must be elected by Friday.
Johnson's withdrawal opens the way to victory for Sunak, 42, who lost an intra-party race for prime minister against Liz Truss in September. Tras resigned after just 44 days in office, hit by the financial storm caused by her plans for major tax cuts.
Sunak, the grandson of immigrants of Indian origin, who went through the classical education of the British elite, a wealthy former banker, would be the first non-white head of the British government.
During the weekend of intense negotiations, Sunak officially announced his candidacy yesterday.
"I want to recover our economy, unite our party and act for our country," he wrote on Twitter, promising "integrity, professionalism and responsibility."
For now, he is the only candidate who has the necessary support of 100 conservative MPs.
Another candidate, Parliamentary Relations Minister Penny Mordent, is far from that number. She still has a few hours left to achieve this, the deadline is early this afternoon, so that task seems difficult to achieve.
She said she is staying in the race, presenting herself as someone who can unite the party.
If she gets the necessary support and remains in the race despite her rival Sunak's numerical advantage, then party members have until Friday to vote online to choose a winner.
If she drops out of the race, Sunak remains the only candidate, meaning there will be no online voting and he could become Britain's fifth prime minister this evening since the Brexit referendum in 2016, when major economic and political turmoil began in the UK.
Sunak, an advocate of strict budget policy, has attracted much of his party colleagues at a time when the country is going through a severe economic and social crisis, further exacerbated by Liz Truss' mistakes that destabilized markets and crashed the value of the British pound.
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