Australia’s Liberal Party voted out its own leader, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull.
Abbott was a terrible leader: a sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, authoritarian climate denier who substituted talking points for substance in his public utterances and debates. Think Tony Blair meets GW Bush.
His MPs outsted him in a 54-44 vote. His replacement, Malcolm Turnbull, had been critical of Abbott’s ideological extremism and empty platitudes, and is said to have engineered the coup to rescue the Liberal party’s chances of re-election in the next election, which will have to be called before 2017.
Long-simmering leadership tensions exploded on Monday when Turnbull declared a challenge, arguing Abbott had shown himself unable to make the case for policy change or turn around the Coalition’s political fortunes.
Abbott pleaded with his party not to repeat the Labor party’s mistakes, and his backers immediately mobilised a counteroffensive, seeking to build momentum during the five hours between Turnbull’s declaration and the ballot.
They insisted electorate offices were being “swamped” with calls from Liberal party members aghast that the party would consider removing a sitting prime minister and providing a parade of ministers to urge the party to stick with the current prime minister.
Malcolm Turnbull to be Australia’s new PM after ousting Tony Abbott in Liberal party vote [Lenore Taylor and Daniel Hurst/The Guardian]
(Image: Tony Abbott November 2014, Australian Minister for Trade, CC-BY)
