UK to get second female PM

LONDON (AP):

Britain is on course to get its second female prime minister, after Conservative lawmakers chose Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom yesterday to fight a run-off contest for leadership of the country's governing party.

The race pits a stalwart of the centre-right government May against a rising star of the party's right. The winner will become the first woman to lead Britain since Margaret Thatcher, who governed from 1979 to 1990, transforming the country with her staunchly free-market policies.

May received 199 votes in a ballot of Conservative members of Parliament, while Leadsom received 84. Justice Secretary Michael Gove got 46 votes and was eliminated from the race.

Some 150,000 Conservative Party members will now vote by postal ballot on the two candidates, with the result announced September 9.

The winner will replace Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced his resignation after Britain voted last month to leave the European Union.

THE FAVOURITE

May, the government's formidable interior minister, is the bookies' favourite to defeat Leadsom, a legislator who emerged as a star of the victorious "leave" campaign in Britain's EU referendum. May supported the "remain" camp but says she has the mettle to unite a party that like the country is divided over the referendum result.

The new leader will be responsible for leading Britain's exit negotiations with the 28-nation EU as well as helping to steady the country's government and economy, which has been deeply shaken by markets' reaction to the EU vote.

Gove said he was "naturally disappointed" to be out of the race, but said "both Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom are formidable politicians".

May, Britain's interior minister for the past six years, is the runaway favourite among lawmakers but the Conservatives have a history of not always choosing the favourite.

May, 59, pitches herself as the Conservatives' unity candidate. She said she was delighted to have won support from "leavers and remainers, MPs from the length and breadth of the country".

Leadsom, 53, argues that the prime minister should be someone who truly believes in a British exit, or Brexit.

Her plain-spoken, common-sense style and strong opposition to the European Union have made her popular with the party's grassroots membership, which is older and more euroskeptic than the British average.

In a speech to supporters, Leadsom vowed to "banish the pessimists" worried about Brexit, and argued that Britain could retain free trade with the EU while simultaneously controlling immigration an unrealistic prospect, according to critics.