June 27, 2013 -- Updated 1245 GMT (2045 HKT)
Kevin Rudd returned as prime minister of Australia, three years after
being replaced in the office by his then-deputy Julia Gillard. FULL STORY
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AUSSIE FIRST FEMALE PM OUT
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June 27, 2013 -- Updated 1056 GMT (1856 HKT)
Can Kevin Rudd deliver for Australia?
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Rudd has won the leadership but is trailing the polls to the Liberal Coalition opposition
- Analysts say there is little chance he will claw back the widening gap to win the federal elections
- Rudd was admired by the electorate but had a fractious relationship with colleagues and staffers
- Analysts say he faces a difficult road ahead convincing the party and the electorate things have changed
Now his most difficult challenge lies ahead.
He not only must hold
together a badly fractured party, but also steer it through an election
that pollsters say it is condemned to lose.
While polls showed that
Rudd, rather than Gillard, would make gains on the opposition Liberal
Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, many say that with federal elections only
months away it is now too late for him to close the gap on his rival.
A Newspoll
poll taken between May 31 and June 2 this year showed support for the
center-right Liberal Coalition at 46% while the center-left Australian
Labor Party trailed at 30% - one of its most catastrophic poll ratings
in decades.
Kevin Rudd sworn in as Australian PM
Australia's first female PM ousted
2012: Gillard & Rudd: Power struggle
For Australia's political commentators, however, Rudd's return is as enigmatic as his personality.
"Kevin Rudd is
resurrected, Julia Gillard's career is destroyed and Rudd has launched a
new crusade to halt the Tony Abbott bandwagon," veteran commentator
Paul Kelly wrote in The Australian newspaper.
"This is the dramatic
trifecta that pivots the 2013 election upon an unpredictable new axis.
In grim desperation the Labor Party has voted for its self-survival in a
bid to deny or cripple an Abbott government."
The political spill that
allowed Julia Gillard to take the leadership from him in 2010 was led
largely by the poor standing Rudd was held in by his own party. Until
his spectacular fall, he was one of Australia's most popular prime
ministers in living history.
Rudd was riding high in
the polls, having sidestepped the recession that hit most developed
economies in the 2008 global financial crisis and formally apologizing
to Australia's Aboriginal People for past abuses. A Mandarin-speaking
career diplomat, he played well on the international stage.
But when the tide turned
against him over his sudden change of policy on the Carbon Pollution
Reduction Scheme, Rudd -- who famously has no faction within a
notoriously tribal Labor Party -- was a hostage to the polls. As soon as
his popularity with the public began to sink, even marginally, Rudd had
few allies and the party rounded on him.
A chief task for Rudd
will be to mend his reputation for irritability, moodiness and
inconsistency that saw him loathed by his own party, observers say. To
many of the Labor Party faithful, Rudd's conservative work ethic and
vocal Christianity comes across as overly preachy and hard-edged.
"When we helped him win
the election in 2007 he got up on the podium in Brisbane and colossally
party-pooped everyone on election night saying: 'Right kids. Good job.
Have an early night because we have to get up early - we've got a lot of
work to do'," one former Labor Party strategist who did not want to be
named told CNN.
"Right then I thought 'Oh no, what have we done? We've voted in some kind of Baptist!'"
Labor has been dragged kicking and screaming towards its survival - but not an election victory
Dennis Shanahan
Dennis Shanahan
Rudd was known as an
intense networker even during his days as Director-General of the Office
of the Cabinet under the 1980s Queensland government of Wayne Goss -- a
position that arguably made him Queensland's most powerful bureaucrat.
"He showed his
control-freaky side even then by excluding others from Goss. He had an
inter-connecting office door from his office to Goss's that Labor Party
staff used to call 'the catflap'," the former party worker said.
His inability to
delegate meant that senior bureaucrats were often in the dark about
important areas of policy which were reportedly sometimes announced at
the last minute at press conferences.
"The Cabinet and ministers were gobsmacked -- that's when they moved in on him and installed Gillard," he said.
Rudd has made much of
his humble origins and a childhood brush with poverty -- a period that
saw his family for a brief stint homeless and living in a car. While
this may have endeared him to the nation, Labor Party staffers complain
that his background also makes him a cold micromanager who is unable to
share power.
Analysts now say that
whether he can claw back anything close to a victory at the federal
elections -- or even ensure the party's survival at future elections -
will depend on whether he can restore his reputation with his own party.
"Labor has been dragged
kicking and screaming towards its survival - but not an election
victory," said Dennis Shanahan, the political editor of The Australian
newspaper. "Kevin Rudd's return does not offer a real chance for an ALP
win, but Labor MPs have finally decided to do what they can for the
party to remain competitive federally in the years to come."
- COPY http://edition.cnn.com
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