Votes cast, polls closed, what are Rishi Sunak’s chances of becoming UK PM?
India Today
Going by the odds and polls, Britain’s foreign secretary Liz Truss is winning hands down. But former Chancellor of Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s team has not given up hope.
The ballots have now closed for the Tory leadership battle. The votes have been cast.
It is estimated that there are about 180,000 to 200,000 Tory party members who were eligible to and responsible for choosing the leader of their party, and thereby, the next prime minister of Britain. This constitutes about 0.3 per cent of the entire population. Such a miniscule number choosing the PM of the country have many frowning, but such are the rules.
It falls upon the MPs and the members of the party in power if their leader, who is also the PM, resigns mid-term for some reason. Exactly what outgoing PM Boris Johnson did. It has thus fallen upon the MPs and the members of the Tory party to choose a leader of their party and the premier of Britain.
The Mile End Institute at Queen Mary University of London has found in their research that of these 180,000 to 200,000 members, 44 per cent are over 65 and 97 per cent are white.
MP for Richmond (Yorks) and the former chancellor of exchequers Rishi Sunak has the odds of as low as 8 to 5 in some polls as against his rival Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is at 92 to 95. This is the same man who left Truss miles behind just a few weeks back in the multiple rounds of voting by Tory members of Parliament.
There are three main reasons why Rishi seems to be lagging:
Rishi’s wealth:
