Australian PM Julia Gillard ousted by rival Kevin Rudd
PM set conditions for snap leadership vote: ‘If you win, you are Labor leader; if you lose, you retire from politics’
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard holds a media conference after winning a leadership challenge in Canberra, Australia, Monday, Feb. 27, 2012. Gillard easily won an internal party vote Monday against the colleague she deposed two years ago, Kevin Rudd, and declared that she had put down the internal strife that has undermined her unpopular government for months. (AP Photo/Andrew Taylor)
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It was Julia Gillard who called the snap leadership vote, vowing to quit politics were she to lose.
The conditions, as the Australian prime minister explained: “If you win, you are Labor leader; if you lose, you retire from politics.”
Gillard said the Labor party leadership vote was in the best interest of Australia. “This is it. There are no more opportunities. Tonight’s the night.”
But it was not her night, as a count of the ballots revealed.
With a vote of 57 to 45, the prime minister of Australia was out and Kevin Rudd was in.
“If I win this ballot, every effort I have in my being will be dedicated to uniting the Australian Labor Party,” Rudd said before the vote. “No retributions, no paybacks, none of that stuff. It’s pointless, it’s old politics.”
After the vote, Gillard confirmed her plans to leave politics. “I will not recontest the federal electorate… at the forthcoming election.”