Former British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak was frontrunner Sunday in the Conservative Party's race to replace Liz Truss as prime minister.
LONDON — Former British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak was frontrunner Sunday in the Conservative Party's race to replace Liz Truss as prime minister, as he garnered the public support of over 100 Tory lawmakers to forge ahead of his two main rivals — ousted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt.
Sunak, 42, confirmed Sunday he was running in the leadership race. He has the backing of at least 124 Conservative lawmakers, according to unofficial tallies by the BBC and Sky News. That's well ahead of the 100 nominations required to qualify. A possible return to power for Johnson, 58, who was forced out of office just weeks ago by a string of ethics scandals, has deeply divided the Conservatives and thrown unpredictability into the race. Supporters say he is a vote winner and has enough support from lawmakers, but many critics warn that another Johnson government would be catastrophic for the party and the country.
But Johnson won the backing of several senior Conservatives, including Nadhim Zahawi, another former Treasury chief. Sunak, who was Treasury chief from 2020 until this summer, steered Britain's slumping economy through the coronavirus pandemic. He quit in July in protest against Johnson's leadership. In the contest to replace Johnson, Sunak argued that climbing inflation must be controlled first, and called promises by Truss and other rivals to immediately slash taxes reckless "fairy tales."
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