Word: ballot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...political fortunes of Michael Heseltine, the former Defense Minister who led the charge against Thatcher and was considered the top contender for her job after he won 152 votes in the first round of a party-leadership contest two weeks ago. Warned that she would lose the second ballot against Heseltine, Thatcher resigned to allow Major and Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd to enter the race...
...logic of putting both men on the ballot was based on the assumption that Hurd, a Tory moderate, and Major, a loyal Thatcherite, could together siphon off more votes from Heseltine than either man alone. By early last week the momentum began to swing to Major, who appealed to younger M.P.s, hard-core Thatcherites, many moderates and right-wingers who considered Heseltine a traitor for precipitating the worst party crisis in 15 years. Also working against Heseltine was the fact that some M.P.s considered the millionaire publisher too flamboyant to be Prime Minister...
...M.P.s gathered in the House of Commons' lobby and awaited the result: Major got 185 votes, Heseltine 131, Hurd 56. As it became clear that Major had missed a majority by only two votes, a large groan of frustration rose up. The prospect of a third ballot was too much to bear after the tension-filled days of the previous three weeks...
...lead, showed that Heseltine would do better than Thatcher as Tory standard bearer. Accordingly, in a first-round vote by the 372 Conservative Members of Parliament, Heseltine won 152 to Thatcher's 204; under the complicated leadership formula, that was just enough, with 16 abstentions, to force a second ballot and encourage opposition to the Prime Minister...
...harmony, Thatcher's written statement was a model of clarity: "Having consulted widely among colleagues, I have concluded that the unity of the party and the prospect of victory in a general election would be better served if I stood down to enable Cabinet colleagues to enter the ballot for leadership...