Gove was eliminated and the two women now have the chance to become the country’s next prime minister. Members will vote via a postal ballot that is expected to be finished September 9.
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Cameron announced his resignation after unsuccessfully campaigning for Britain to vote “remain” in the June 23 referendum that asked voters whether the United Kingdom should stay in the European Union.
Leadsom backer Steve Baker – a fellow Brexit campaigner – described the upcoming contest as a “David vs Goliath” battle.
Leadsom, 53, who backed the “leave” campaign in the referendum, entered Parliament in 2010 after a career in financial services.
“This vote shows that the Conservative Party can come together, and under my leadership it will”, May told supporters shortly after the results were announced.
She paid tribute to Mrs Leadsom’s “guts” in putting her name forward for leader, and said she hoped the leadership contest would see a “big, broad debate” being held across the country. A third candidate, Justice Secretary Michael Gove received the fewest votes and is now out of contention.
“I would like to say to anybody who thinks dirty tricks work: pack it up, because they make you look foolish, make the party look bad and we want a straight, robust contest between two women who know what they are about, who need to present themselves”.
In a speech earlier, Mrs Leadsom pitched herself as the “prosperity not austerity” candidate in the race to become the next Prime Minister.
They’re the two Conservative Party candidates still left in the running to take over as prime minister.
But he refused to criticise her opponent Andrea Leadsom when asked if there would be security risks if the relatively inexperienced junior minister won the leadership race.
Home Secretary May is the favorite to succeed Cameron.
Britain’s second largest party in Parliament, the Labour party, has been facing a leadership crisis as well.
The second round will be executed and judged by different constituencies registered party members.
Mrs Leadsom also promised to listen to the thousands of people who felt they had been ignored by the country’s leadership.
Others, however, such as former worker and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, have insisted that she would “develop” over the coming weeks and get “better and better and better”.
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Widely portrayed in the media as an act of treachery, that may have damaged his own bid, along with past interviews in which he had said he was neither interested in the prime minister’s job nor well suited to it.
