Australia faced its first hung parliament in 70 years yesterday after a furious voter backlash against Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who ousted an elected leader just eight weeks ago.
Gillard, who became the country’s first woman prime minister in a sudden party coup, was lagging her conservative rivals in national elections with 70 seats to 72, public broadcaster ABC said as counting went deep into the night.
The Welsh-born redhead, 48, conceded her centre-left Labour party would not gain the 76 seats needed for an outright majority and would rely on the support of parliament’s projected four independent MPs.
“The people have spoken, but it’s going to take a little while to determine exactly what they have said,” Gillard told supporters in Melbourne.
“What we know from tonight’s result is there will be a number of independents in the house of representatives playing a role as the next government of Australia is formed,” she added.
Analysts said Australia could be in limbo for up to two weeks as parties horse-trade for leadership of the 150-seat lower house, after Gillard’s Labour became the first single-term government since 1932.
“What is clear tonight is that the Labour Party has definitely lost its majority,” opposition leader Tony Abbott, of the conservative Liberal/National coalition, told cheering supporters in what smacked of a victory speech.
“I say, on this remarkable night in our political history, that the Liberal Party is back in business,” he said at the jubilant gathering in Sydney.
The events represent a stunning reverse for Labour, which swept to power in 2007 under Kevin Rudd but enraged voters by dumping the prime minister in June, after his approval ratings slumped.
Gillard quickly called elections, hoping for a honeymoon with voters, but ran a chaotic, leak-plagued campaign which failed to capitalise on Labour’s big achievement of helping Australia avoid a recession during the financial crisis.
The stunning electoral upset that robbed Labour of its majority was “a referendum on the political execution of a prime minister” by Labour’s factional leaders, Abbott told his supporters, while urging them not to be triumphalist.