UK (Commonwealth Union) – Liz Truss, who weeks back became Britain’s 56th Prime Minister and the 3rd female Prime Minister, submitted her resignation on Thursday after 44 days in office, the shortest term for a British Prime Minister.
Liz Truss secured 81,325 votes (57.3%) narrowly beating Rishi Sunak who secured 60,399 votes (42.6%) when she became premier, which came at a difficult time for the UK and the entire world as it recovers from the COVID-19 lockdowns which devastated most of the world’s economies. The UK is currently struggling with inflation, a possible energy crisis and gross debt that was £2,365.4 billion (approximately 2,629 billion US dollars) at the end of Quarter 1 of this year.
On announcing her resignation Truss stated that she was not able to deliver the mandate on which she was elected for the conservative party. “I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the conservative party,” she said. The economic programme of Truss’s government is largely blamed for her downfall.
Sunak is the favorite to take the post as the next Prime Minister as he received most votes from MPs in the prior leadership election and cleared the limit with 137 votes, where Truss came in second, securing 113 MPs. Sunak had been critical of the economic policies of Truss, indicating once that he would rather lose the election than make promises he cannot keep, which may see his supporters feel vindicated as much of Sunak’s predictions have come to pass.
Boris Johnson is the other top contender for the post of PM as he still has strong support within the Conservative Party. A come back for Johnson had long been on the cards according to many experts, but maybe even he did not predict that it could come so soon.
Penny Mordaunt is appearing as the third most popular candidate to take the post who also has strong support within the Conservative Party.
