UK foreign secretary Liz Truss defeated Indian-origin former chancellor Rishi Sunak to be named the winner of the Conservative Party leadership contest on Monday and will now go on to formally take charge as British Prime Minister as Boris Johnson's successor.
The 47-year-old senior Cabinet minister was widely expected to become the third female British Prime Minister after over 170,000 online and postal votes cast by Tory members, ending Sunak's historic run as the first member of Parliament of Indian heritage to compete for the top job at 10 Downing Street.
Truss polled 81,326 votes, compared to Sunak's 60,399 in an election with a high turnout of 82.6 per cent, with 654 rejected ballots from a total of 172,437 eligible Tory voters. It means Truss won by a comfortable margin, but her victory was slimmer than in other recent Tory leadership contests at 57.4 per cent to Sunak's 42.6 per cent – reflecting a divide within the governing party.
Sunak, 42, soon took to Twitter to call for party unity: “Thank you to everyone who voted for me in this campaign. I've said throughout that the Conservatives are one family.
"It's right we now unite behind the new PM, Liz Truss, as she steers the country through difficult times."
In her acceptance speech, Truss declared: "We will deliver, we will deliver, and we will deliver."
"I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people's energy bills but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply," she said, with reference to the key issue dominating the leadership campaign which she dubbed "one of the longest job interviews in history".
After thanking her fellow finalist Sunak, Truss also paid tribute to outgoing leader Johnson.
"Boris, you got Brexit done, you crushed [Opposition Labour ex-leader] Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the vaccine and you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You are admired from Kyiv to Carlisle," she said, to a rather muted response from her party colleagues gathered for the announcement.
And, her reference to a Tory victory under her leadership in 2024 will be seen as a sign of ruling out the prospect of an early general election.
The result was formally announced by the returning officer of the leadership contest and chair of the Conservative Party's powerful 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, Sir Graham Brady, at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre near Downing Street in London.
However, for pollsters, political analysts and media outlets it came as little surprise as Truss had been the frontrunner to beat 42-year-old Sunak in pre-poll surveys and bookmaker odds on the race.
A combination of the Tory membership base's lingering loyalty towards outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom they see as being betrayed by former close ally Sunak, and Truss' pledge to cut taxes are among the key factors behind the British Indian MP failing to clinch the race.