Australian PM loses party leadership vote

Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, has been unseated by intra-party rival Kevin Rudd as the Labor Party leader. Gillard lost a snap party ballot on Wednesday, which she had called for amid speculation that Rudd’s supporters were preparing to challenge her. Rudd won the vote of the Labor caucus by 57 votes to Gillard’s 45, the official returning officer announced. Rudd earlier promised to unite the Australian Labor Party. “No retributions, no paybacks, none of that stuff. It’s pointless, it’s old politics,” he had said. In June 2010, Gillard had toppled Rudd – then prime minister – in a leadership coup. In the following months, Gillard was elected as Australia’s first female prime minister, and she subsequently picked Rudd to serve as her foreign minister. Rudd later resigned from his post as foreign minister in February 2012, saying that he felt he no longer had his PM’s support. A failed party leadership bid followed, but he was finally able to seal his return to the top post in the party after Wednesday’s vote. Gillard had earlier pledged to quit politics if she lost the party leadership vote, and in comments after the poll she duly announced that she did not intend to seek re-election in her constituency. Opinion polls suggested she was headed for defeat in general elections scheduled for September. Gillard thanked her party and those who voted for her for the opportunity to lead both Labor and the country over the last three years. Rudd will now likely have to demonstrate that he can command a majority of politicians in the House of Representatives before the governor-general makes him prime minister. If he cannot, opposition leader Tony Abbott could be asked to form a government, or the elections could be moved up from September to August. It is not yet certain though whether the change of leadership will boost Labor’s poll prospects. “The question in next elections will be whether the Labor Party has gone too far now, in terms of its appeal to Australian voters,” said Bernard Keane, a political reporter for crikey.com.