Updated 10.51am
THE FORMER AUSTRALIAN prime minister Kevin Rudd has returned to power this morning after ousting Julia Gillard in a dramatic Labor party leadership heave.
Rudd’s return to his old job comes three years after Gillard toppled him in a leadership heave, and just over a year after he unsuccessfully challenged Gillard’s leadership.
Rudd won a ballot of Labor members 57 to 45 returning him to power.
The change comes three months after Rudd decided not to contest a leadership ballot that Gillard had called amid a sharp decline in her’s and Labor’s popularity in government.
Calling a ballot again early this morning (late in the evening Australian time), Gillard said the issue needed to be resolved before the scheduled election in September.
Gillard is likely to quit politics altogether after three eventful years in office that have been notable for the unrest within her own party and Rudd’s presence which seemingly undermined her at various times.
She had earlier said ahead of the ballot: “I believe anybody who enters the ballot tonight should do it on the following conditions: that if you win, you’re Labor leader; that if you lose, you retire from politics.”
Federal elections had been scheduled for September but reports in Australia indicate that Rudd will go for an August election in an attempt to seize the initiative from the opposition party, spearheaded by Tony Abbott.
First published 8.55am
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