Australia’s Premier Faces Bleak Predictions on Eve of Elections
Source: New York Times
SYDNEY, Australia — Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who emerged triumphantly from the political wilderness to regain Australia’s leadership this year, is battling widespread predictions of a defeat in federal elections on Saturday that would bring an end to his party’s tumultuous six years in power.
The contest pits Mr. Rudd, of the Labor Party, against Tony Abbott, the leader of the conservative opposition Liberal-National coalition. Mr. Rudd, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2010, returned to the leadership in June after a nearly two-year campaign by his supporters culminated in a party coup that dispatched the country’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard.
But the Labor Party, which dumped Ms. Gillard in the hopes of averting a landslide loss that would devastate its ranks in Parliament, has struggled to shake an image that it is more focused on personal feuds than on pressing issues like the slowing of Australia’s mining-driven economy and the record number of asylum seekers trying to reach the country in dangerous and overcrowded boats.
Although Mr. Rudd’s return led to a bounce in support for Labor, which has led a minority government since its poor showing in the last federal elections in 2010, polls indicate that surge has now evaporated. And in a remarkable reversal for Mr. Rudd, a man once considered Australia’s most popular politician, analysts say the question is not whether the Labor Party will lose, but by how much, and whether he may be among the casualties; Mr. Rudd is facing a tough fight over his own seat in Parliament.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/asia/australias-prime-minister-facing-election-drops-in-poll.html?_r=0
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