Why it could be months before the UK has a new Prime Minister

It could be months before Boris Johnson is replaced as UK Prime Minister.

The Conservative leader quit on Thursday night, following the dramatic resignations of more than 50 members of his government.

But he plans to stay on as a caretaker prime minister until a successor is chosen.

Political marketing expert Dr Andrew Hughes says that’s likely to take months, due to the leadership voting process within the UK’s Conservative Party.

“They have postal ballots,” he told Heidi Murphy, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

“Think about our preferential voting system here where the last person gets excluded on the least number of votes, then they’re gone and then preferences go to the next person. In the UK … the last person goes, but their votes don’t get redistributed, they go back to the ballots again.

“It goes on until there’s two left.

“It takes a fair bit of time. That’s going to take months to do — probably two or three months.”

A new Conservative leader is likely to be installed at the party’s annual conference in October.

Press PLAY below to hear why the process is likely to take so long

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