Australian Labor in leadership crisis (again)

Update: Reports suggest that Gillard has lost the leadership election to Kevin Rudd – the man she replaced in similar circumstances back in 2010. Unless the divided Labor Party picks itself up to win the election, Australia could have three PMs in a matter of weeks. Crikey…

——

With less than three months to go to the general election, Labor Party leader and Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced that there will be a leadership vote at 7pm today Canberra time (9.00 GMT).

This will be the second time this year the leadership will be debated. The last time was just three months ago in March, when a spill (a leadership contest) was called, but leading challenger Kevin Rudd declined to run. On that occasion Ms Gillard and her deputy Wayne Swann were elected unopposed.

There was an unsuccessful attempt to oust Ms Gillard from the leadership by her rival and predecessor Mr Rudd in February 2012.

Ms Gillard has said that if she loses the challenge tonight, she will leave politics and called on any challengers to do the same.

“This is it, tonight is the night,” she said. “I wouldn’t be putting myself forward unless I had a degree of confidence.”

Ms Gillard was herself the beneficiary of a spill against Mr Rudd in 2010, just two months before the general election.

On that occasion, Labor were returned to power only as a result of a confidence and supply arrangement with crossbench MPs  in the first hung Parliament in Australia since 1940.