AUSTRALIA- NOT QUITE OVER-
Australia’s conservative lawmakers chose one of their own to become the country’s newest prime minister on Friday, after a vote that capped days of chaos in the capital and underscored the turbulence of the country’s politics.
Scott Morrison, who had been the country’s treasurer, was sworn in as the sixth prime minister in 11 years after a vote by the governing Liberal Party, in which he defeated Peter Dutton, a former home affairs minister, and Julie Bishop, the country’s foreign minister.
Josh Frydenberg, who had been energy minister under the ousted prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was elected deputy leader.
At a news conference shortly after the vote, Mr. Morrison said he and Mr. Frydenberg represented a “new generation” of Liberal Party leadership. After a week of contentious party infighting and back-room backstabbing, Mr. Morrison pledged to “heal our party.”
Many of Australia’s citizens complained this week that their leaders were too focused on political machinations at the expense of more important issues, including a drought that has wreaked havoc across the country for months. Mr. Morrison called the record-breaking drought the country’s “most urgent and pressing issue” and promised to make it his top priority.
Friday’s vote was the second challenge this week to the leadership of Mr. Turnbull, who himself assumed office by leading a party revolt in 2015.
But Mr. Morrison, 50, did not initiate the challenge. Rather, he backed Mr. Turnbull earlier in the week, then emerged as a more unifying alternative to Peter Dutton, a former home affairs minister known for his hard-line stance on immigration.
Mr. Dutton mounted the earlier, unsuccessful leadership challenge on Tuesday. After a week of turbulence that he ignited, he sought Friday to bolster the now-damaged Liberal Party as it moves closer to a general election expected in the coming months.
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