Although the final tally is not in yet, the elections just held in Australia have produced no clear winners. Neither of the main political blocs — the ruling Australian Labour Party and the Coalition, which comprises the Liberal and National parties — has managed a majority in the 150-member House of Representatives. They are expected to finish dead-heat with 73 seats each, three short of the required number. Prime Minister Julia Gillard is still in the race to form the government, provided she can win over at least two independents. What is incontestable is that Labour is the main loser in this election. Only three years ago, the party won a decisive victory under the inspired leadership of Kevin Rudd, removing John Howard's Coalition government that had been in power since 1996. Unfortunately, the Rudd government's honeymoon was all too brief, its popularity plummeting over failure to implement a key election promise on reduction of carbon emissions. A panicked Labour removed Mr. Rudd and anointed Ms. Gillard in his stead. As borne out by the election results, the internal coup, meant to repair Labour's image, contributed to the swing away from the party. Coalition leader Tony Abbott, who unexpectedly rose to the leadership of the Liberals and until recently was not seen as a dynamic enough personality, used the incident to project Labour as a party of crippling internal divisions. Ms Gillard had hoped to cash in on the public enthusiasm for the country's first woman Prime Minister. But that appears to have given way rather quickly to distaste over her perceived disloyalty to Mr. Rudd at the altar of ruthless ambition. It did not help Ms Gillard that an important Labour achievement — successfully insulating the Australian economy from the global economic downturn — was under Mr. Rudd's watch.
With the results of this close contest now effectively in the hands of three independent winners, both Ms Gillard and Mr. Abbott have descended into the race to woo them. This is Australia's first hung parliament in seven decades; the political class as well as voters are unused to the horse-trading and wheeling-dealing that the situation demands. Neither of the leaders wants to be seen as making a deal that goes against voter expectations; nor do the independents. The complicated system of preferential votes, which will determine the percentage of votes polled by the two parties, will also play a role. It may take days after the final results are in for a new government to fall in place. The main challenge for such a government would be its ability to take important political and economic decisions. How long it will last is a question that is bound to be asked sooner than later.
