Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stared down a leadership crisis yesterday and ensured she will lead the Government into a September 14 election after she called a surprise leadership vote over her chief rival Kevin Rudd.

Gillard stamped her authority on the governing Labour Party by being re-elected unopposed after Rudd conceded he did not have the numbers to topple her.

Treasurer Wayne Swan was re-elected unopposed as deputy prime minister.

The dramatic move to call on a vote came after months of leadership destabilisation, with Rudd’s supporters pushing for a change to help revive the party’s ailing fortunes in the polls.

“Today, the leadership of our political party, the Labour Party, has been settled and settled in the most conclusive fashion possible,” Gillard told reporters. “The whole business is completely at an end. It has ended now.”

The Labour Party has now endorsed Gillard over Rudd in three leadership votes.

But Gillard faces the prospect of trying to unify a deeply divided party and turning around opinion polls that show her government will be easily defeated in the general election.

“I think they’re terminal. There is no way out of this,” political analyst Nick Economou told Reuters, adding the leadership tension reinforced perceptions that the conservative opposition would easily win the election.

Gillard’s leadership has been under threat for most of the past two years as her minority government lumbered from one crisis to another, despite an economy that avoided recession after the 2008 global crisis and has seen has seen 21 years of continuous growth.

Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister, replaced Rudd in a party coup in June 2010.

The dumping of Rudd, an elected prime minister, angered many voters who have never forgiven Gillard for the way she became leader.

Gillard defeated Rudd a second time in a leadership vote in February 2012, prompting Rudd to promise at the time that he would not challenge and would only take on the leadership again with the overwhelming support of his party.

Rudd yesterday conceded he did not have the numbers to win a comprehensive victory over Gillard.

“I said that the only circumstances under which I would consider a return to the leadership would be if there was an overwhelming majority of the parliamentary party requesting such a return – drafting me to return. And the position was vacant,” Rudd said ahead of the vote. “I am here to inform you that those circumstances do not exist.” (Reuters)