UK Conservatives jostle in crowded, testy leadership race

Candidates to replace Boris Johnson as Britain’s prime minister are scattering tax-cutting promises to their Conservative Party electorate, as party officials prepared yesterday to quickly narrow the crowded field of almost a dozen candidates.

Little-known junior minister Rehman Chishti became the 11th candidate to declare he wants to succeed Johnson, who quit as Conservative leader on Thursday amid a party revolt triggered by months of ethics scandals. Other contenders include Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Treasury chief Nadhim Zahawi, former health secretaries Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt, and backbench lawmakers Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch.

The new leader will be chosen in a two-stage election, in which the 358 Conservative lawmakers reduce the race to two candidates through a series of elimination votes. The final pair will be put to a postal ballot of party members across the country. Under Britain’s parliamentary system the new leader will automatically become prime minister without the need for a general election.

The party’s 1922 Committee, which runs leadership contests, was set to elect a new executive yesterday, which will lay out rules for the contest. The committee wants to complete the parliamentary stage of the election before lawmakers break for the summer on July 21. That would mean a summer second round with a new leader in place by the time the House of Commons returns on Sept. 5. JILL LAWLESS, LONDON , MDT/AP