New Delhi: Liz Truss was named as the UK’s next Prime Minister on Monday, winning an internal leadership contest of the ruling Conservative party.
47-year-old Truss defeated her rival, former finance minister Rishi Sunak, by 81,326 votes to 60,399.
“We need to show that we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy,” Truss said after the result was announced.
“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
Liz Truss will be only the UK’s third female Prime Minister following Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher.
The announcement triggers the start of a handover from Boris Johnson, who was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal saw support for his administration drain away.
He will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation.
Truss will follow him and be asked to form a government by the monarch.
Long the front-runner in the race to replace Johnson, Truss will become the Conservatives’ fourth prime minister since a 2015 election.
Truss campaigned on a platform of slashing taxes and bulldozing bureaucratic “orthodoxy”, particularly in the finance ministry where she once worked.
Rishi Sunak emerged as one of the top candidates to compete for the post of UK PM, to replace Boris Johnson. Sunak has been a member of the Conservative Party for Richmond (Yorks) since 2015.
Sunak was born in Southampton on May 12, 1980, to Indian parents Yashvir and Usha Sunak in East Africa. His grandparents were born in British India’s Punjab province. They migrated to the UK from East Africa in the 1960s with their children.