United Kingdom: Rishi Sunak announces his candidacy for Downing Street

Beaten at the start of September by Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, 42, made his candidacy for Downing Street official on Sunday, reaching the 100 sponsorships of Conservative MPs necessary to continue the race the day before. . A victory would make him the UK’s first non-white head of government. Maybe time for revenge for Rishi Sunak. The former British finance minister announced on Sunday October 23 that he was running to become Prime Minister, on the eve of the closing of candidacies for this lightning campaign, in which Boris Johnson is still waiting for his decision. Rishi Sunak was the first to have reached the 100 Conservative MP sponsorships needed to continue the race on Friday evening, but the 42-year-old waited until Sunday morning to formalize his candidacy. “The United Kingdom is a great country, but we are facing a deep crisis. economic”, wrote on Twitter this former banker, who was Minister of Finance from 2019 to last July. >> To read also: “After the resignation of Liz Truss, the conservatives in search of a new Prime Minister” “That’s why I am running to be the leader of the Conservative Party and your next Prime Minister. I want to straighten out our economy, unite our party and act for our country,” he continued. This new campaign for Downing Street opened on Thursday due to the resignation of Liz Truss, after just 44 days in office. In early September, she was elected by members of the Conservative Party against Rishi Sunak, who may therefore have his revenge in the coming days. After a political week full of twists and turns, three possible candidates have emerged since Thursday: Rishi Sunak , Penny Mordaunt, who announced her candidacy on Friday and also ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in July. The candidates have until Monday afternoon to obtain the hundred sponsorships. According to the Guido Fawkes site, which closely following the upheavals of the campaign, Rishi Sunak had 139 endorsements on Sunday after the announcement of his candidacy, ahead of Boris Johnson (75) and Penny Mordaunt (27). Once the candidates have presented their endorsements, the 357 Conservative MPs will vote and, if there are two remaining candidates, the party’s 170,000 members will have to decide between them in an internet vote by 28 October. In the event of a single candidate, he would enter Downing Street directly at the start of the week. Negotiations continue Negotiations within the deeply divided Conservative Party will therefore continue on Sunday. Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson met on Saturday evening to, according to several media, mention the possibility of a joint candidacy. These two men have been at loggerheads since July, when the resignation of Rishi Sunak, followed by around sixty others, led to the departure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This meeting obviously did not allow them to agree on a joint ticket.Boris Johnson will “clearly” run, one of his relatives, current Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Rees-Mogg, told the BBC on Sunday.According to a Sunday Telegraph poll, Boris Johnson would have all his chances if the voters of the party had to decide between two candidates: a little more than half of them think that he would be the best Prime Minister, according to this poll, while only 28% lean for Rishi Sunak. And nearly 60% of these Tory voters believe that Boris Johnson’s departure at the start of the summer was a mistake. Penny Mordaunt, who denied on Sunday having had negotiations with Boris Johnson’s camp, said she was “confident ” on his sponsorships.>> To read again: “United Kingdom: Liz Truss – Rishi Sunak, a duel placed under the sign of Margaret Thatcher” “I think I am best placed to bring the party together”, he said. she said on the BBC. “People are fed up with our arguments,” she added. “What is important is that we rebuild stability (…) and trust”. leaders etc”, she also wrote in the daily The Telegraph. “Understandable, yes. Acceptable, no”. “It is not acceptable that we now risk losing an election because we cannot work together”, continued Penny Mordaunt. The next Prime Minister will govern a country immersed in a serious crisis in the cost of living, with inflation exceeding 10%. He will have to calm the markets, in the storm since the budget announcements of the Truss government at the end of September. He will also have to try to unite a party that has been divided for years, two years from the general elections. Labor opposition leader Keir Starmer reiterated his call for early elections on Sunday. Labor is at its highest in the polls, after twelve years of conservative power. The next Conservative Prime Minister will be the fifth since 2016. With AFP