Rishi Runak and Liz Truss have been selected by Conservative MPs in the UK as the final two candidates in the race to become the new leader of the party.
Truss is the current UK foreign secretary while Sunak is former chancellor of the Exchequer, Britain’s equivalent of a finance minister.
The final two were chosen by Conservative MPs which saw Sunak top the results with 137 and Truss second with 113 votes.
Truss and Sunak will now put their cases forward to the Conservative Party’s 180,000 members who will vote to decide who becomes the new leader on 5 September.
While the pair don’t vary largely in ideology, they do differ on how to approach some key policies – including, perhaps most significantly, taxation.
Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs banker, raised Britain’s tax burden to the highest level in decades, while Truss has pledged to cut taxes and regulation.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation in early July following a string of scandals, but will remain in the position until his party has chosen a new leader.
Boris Johnson became leader in 2019 when Theresa May resigned as prime minister. The resignation of Johnson came after 50 lawmakers and government officials resigned over a 48-hour period leaving his position as leader of the Conservative party untenable.
The Conservatives have a strong majority in parliament after winning the 2019 general election so the winner of the party leadership contest will automatically become prime minister.
Party leaders are chosen by an internal process, and to take part in the race, a Conservative member of parliament needs to be nominated by at least eight colleagues.
A winner is selected from the nominated individuals in a two-stage process. First, MPs whittle the candidates down in a series of secret ballots, whereby the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated at each round until two are remaining. In the second stage, party members vote on the final two candidates.
