UK's governing Conservative Party said the new leader who will succeed Boris Johnson as the British Prime Minister will be announced on September 5. Boris Johnson recently stepped down following a spate of resignations in his government, but will continue to serve as the Prime Minister till his successor is announced.

As this is not a general election, only the Conservative Party will choose a new leader, who will go on to become leader of the government and Britain.

Eight candidates will compete to become the leader of the Conservative Party and the government --Liz Truss, Nadhim Zahawi, Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat.

Two other lawmakers -- Sajid Javid and Rehman Chishti – who had earlier expressed their intention to run for the post, withdrew their candidature before the final list was announced, Reuters reported.

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This means that these candidates have the backing of at least 20 other Tory MPs (a proposer, a seconder and 18 others) to get on to the ballot.

How will the leader be elected?

The Conservative Party chooses its leader through a two-stage leadership selection process. The Tory MPs will first hold a series of secret ballots to bring down the field of candidates to two. Secret ballot votes will happen in the UK today, where 358 Tory MPs will vote in the first round. In this round, the candidates will have to secure at least 30 votes.

Another ballot will take place on July 14, in which the bottom-ranked candidate will be eliminated. Further ballots will be held in the following week, with the bottom-ranked candidate getting eliminated in each round. Depending on the number of candidates, the process generally takes one to two weeks.

In the second round, the final two candidates will be put before the party’s approximately 160,000 - 200,000 individual members, who will select the winner through a postal ballot. However, this represents less than 0.3 percent of the population. At times, Prime Ministers selected through this procedure call a general election to establish a mandate.

Johnson had also called for an election in December 2019, after being selected as a party leader in July the same year. However, the new PM is not obliged to call an early election like Gordon Brown did not hold an early election when he took over from Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2007.

What are hustings?

The final two candidates will campaign for the second round throughout the summer. This campaign event is known as ‘hustings’, which typically involves speeches before voters.

The ballot papers will be sent to members in August and the final result will be announced on September 5.

Queen’s role

As per tradition, the outgoing Prime Minister will appear before the House of Commons for the last time and then outside 10 Downing Street, before visiting the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The departing prime minister places his resignation before the queen, after which a statement is released by the palace saying that the queen is “pleased to accept” the prime minister’s resignation.

Soon after the old prime minister’s car departs from the palace, one carrying the new leader will visit the queen. The new leader will seek permission from the head of state to form a new government. Once the queen accepts, the country will have a new prime minister.

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(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)