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Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and former Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt have been eliminated from the race to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader after the first round of voting by Tory MPs.
The senior Conservatives failed to get the 30 votes required to get to the next stage of the Tory leadership contest on Wednesday afternoon.
The frontrunners, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and trade minister Penny Mordaunt, coasted through in their bid to be the next prime minister.
Senior backbencher Tom Tugendhat, Attorney General Suella Braverman, and former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch also progressed to the final six candidates.
Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative 1922 committee overseeing the contest, read out the results in a crowded Committee Room 14 in the House of Commons.
Sunak was on 88, Mordaunt on 67, Truss, 50, Badenoch, 40, Tugendhat, 37, and Braverman squeaked through on 32.
Zahawi, brought in by Johnson after Sunak's resignation, got 25 and Hunt only 18.
Truss sought to unite the right of the party, as subsequent voting from Thursday will eliminate the least popular candidate until two are left.
‘Now is the time for colleagues to unite behind the candidate who will cut taxes, deliver the real economic change we need from day one and ensure Putin loses in Ukraine,’ a spokeswoman for the Foreign Secretary said.
By Sam Blewett and David Hughes, PA Political Staff
source: PA
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