The British Conservative Party elects Kemi Badenoch as its new leader after the electoral defeat

The British Conservative Party elected this Saturday Kemi Badenoch as its new leader, as he tries to recover from a crushing electoral defeat that ended 14 years in power.

Badenoch defeated rival lawmaker Robert Jenrick in a vote of nearly 100,000 members of the center-right party. It is the first black woman who heads a large British political party and replaces the former prime minister, Rishi Sunak. The Conservative Party lost more than 200 seats, reducing it to 121.

The arduous task of the new leader is try to restore the party’s reputation after years of division, policies on key issues such as the economy and immigration, and return the conservatives to power in the next elections, scheduled for 2029.

“The task before us is tough but simple,” Badenoch said in a victory speech to a room full of Conservative lawmakers, staff and journalists in London.

“Our first responsibility as Her Majesty’s loyal opposition is to hold this Labor Government to account. The second is no less important. It is to prepare ourselves over the next few years to govern, to ensure that, in the next election, we have not only a clear of conservative promises that attract the people British, but a clear plan on how to put them into practice, a clear plan to change this country by changing the way the Government works,” declared the new leader of the Tories.

A former engineer with Nigerian roots

Badenoch, Business Secretary in the previous Conservative Government, was born in London to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in the West African country. The 44-year-old former software engineer presents herself as a disruptor who advocates a free market economy and low taxesand promises to “rewire, reboot and reprogram” the British state.

A critic of multiculturalism and a self-proclaimed enemy of “wokeness,” Badenoch has drawn criticism for recently saying that “Not all cultures are equally valid” and for suggesting that maternity pay was excessive.

In a race that has lasted more than three months, Conservative lawmakers narrowed the number of candidates to six in a series of votes before putting the final two to the party’s membership at large.

The two finalists come from the right of the party, and argued that they can win back voters from Reform UKthe far-right, anti-immigration party led by populist politician Nigel Farage, which has eroded conservative support.

But the Conservative Party, the Tories, has also lost many voters to the winning party, Labor, and the centrist Liberal Democrats, and some conservatives worry that turning to the right will distance the party from public opinion.