Republicans pick Paul Ryan as speaker of the House

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday nominated lawmaker Paul Ryan to be the new speaker of the House, following current Speaker John Boehner’s decision to resign late last September.

A full session of the House is set to ratify the nomination this Thursday, when Ryan will become the Republicans’ official choice despite the reluctance of ultraconservatives, who would have preferred a speaker more akin to their ideology.

In a secret ballot, Ryan obtained 200 votes from among the 245 conservatives that make up the Lower House, though most members of the socalled Freedom Caucus, sympathetic to the radical Tea Party movement, voted for Florida lawmaker Daniel Webster.

Kevin McCarthy, once considered a natural substitute and the favorite candidate of the party’s leadership, dropped out of the contest last Oct. 8 after being harshly criticized for the controversial remarks he made about the Select Committee organized by Congress to analyze the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

His withdrawal sparked a crisis among Republicans, which led many to pressure Ryan, who was the party’s vice presidential candidate in 2012, into seeking the speakership.

Ryan, considered by many conservatives as the only candidate able to achieve a consensus in a deeply divided Republican Party where the strength of ultraconservative factions continues to grow, decided to seek the position after finding that he had the support of a large majority in his party.

If all goes as expected, Boehner’s last day as speaker will be this Friday, after more than four years heading Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and a quarter of a century as a legislator.