Australia is to have a new prime minister after Tony Abbott was ousted as leader of the centre-right Liberal Party by Malcolm Turnbull.
In the hastily arranged party leadership ballot, Mr. Abbott, who had been plagued by poor opinion polls, received 44 votes to Mr. Turnbull’s 54, the BBC reports.
Mr. Turnbull said he assumed that parliament would serve its full term, implying no snap general election.
The new leader will be Australia’s fourth prime minister since 2013.
The prime minister-elect is expected to be sworn in after Mr. Abbott writes to Australia’s governor general and resigns.
The vote took place at a meeting of Liberal Members of Parliament late on Monday. They also voted for Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to remain deputy leader of the party.
Earlier on Monday, Mr. Turnbull had said if Mr. Abbott remained as leader, the coalition government would lose the next election.
He said he had not taken the decision lightly, but that it was “clear enough that the government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need.”
The last Australian prime minister to serve a full term was John Howard, who left power in 2007.
Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard was ousted by rival Kevin Rudd in a leadership vote in June 2013 – months before a general election won by Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party.
Ms Gillard herself had ousted Mr. Rudd as prime minister in 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment