Britain will have a new prime minister within a week, outgoing leader Liz Truss said in her resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday.
The fast-track process is in stark contrast to the contest that catapulted Truss into the hot seat – that lasted six weeks at the height of the summer.
This time, with the Conservatives at rock-bottom in the opinion polls and the markets jittery after a weeks of drama over Truss’ failed economic policy agenda, the party wants a new leader in place as soon as possible and with as little drama as possible.
Graham Brady, the Conservative official responsible for the process, announced the candidates to replace Truss will need get least 100 nominations from the party’s MPs by 2pm local time Monday.
If only one candidate meets that threshold, they will automatically become leader. Otherwise, an online ballot of party members will close on Friday October 28.
The winner of the contest will be the fifth Conservative prime minister in just over six years – and the third within this parliamentary term. But who might the next leader be? Here are some of the main runners and riders:
Rishi Sunak
Sunak has proved to be something of a prophet of the government’s demise, as many of the predictions he made during this summer’s leadership about Truss’s economic plan came to pass.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) warned that Truss’s unfunded tax cuts would lead to a run on sterling, a panic in the bond market and concern from the International Monetary Fund. Perhaps even he would have been surprised by the pace with which he was proved right.
