MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, ahead in first vote to replace Boris Johnson

The first vote came after Johnson's final session of PM's Questions, in which the government refused to allow debate time for a no-confidence motion tabled by the Labour party.

Tories in the British Parliament cast their first-round of votes on Wednesday to pick a candidate to replace outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson as head of the party and UK's head of government.

Following the first round of voting, former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak leads five other candidates, while current Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi and former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt were eliminated from the race after they failed to reach the threshold of 30 votes in the secret ballot. After his elimination from the race, Hunt announced that he was backing Sunak for the position of prime minister.

“Rishi is one of the most decent straight people with the highest standards of integrity that I have ever met in British politics,” Hunt was cited as saying by Sky News. “And that's why I would be proud to have him as my next prime minister.”

Each round will knock out the candidates with the least support until only two are left, at which point grassroots party members will pick the final winner. In practice, some lawmakers often retract their candidacy, speeding up the process.

The first vote came after Johnson's final session of Prime Minister's Questions, in which the government refused to allow debate time for a no-confidence motion tabled by the opposition Labour party.

Sunak, whose resignation last week came as a surprising prelude to events that eventually saw Johnson saying he would finally step down, is one of the favorites for the top job.

He scored 88 votes in Wednesday's vote, ahead of junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt with 67 votes and foreign Secretary Liz Truss with 50.Lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, ex-Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch and Attorney General Suella Braverman also remain on the ballot.

Sunak promised to confront the difficult economic backdrop with “honesty, seriousness and determination,” rather than piling the burden on future generations. He added it was not credible to offer more spending and lower taxes, saying he was offering honesty, “not fairytales”.

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll of nearly 900 party members found Mordaunt was the favorite, beating any of the others in a run-off. Further rounds of voting will take place Thursday and, if needed, next week.

A survey by research consultancy Savanta ComRes this week showed support for the Labour Party at 43%, compared with 28% for the Conservatives, Labor's biggest poll lead since 2013.