Conservative Prime Minister admits defeat in election

par Byron Kaye et Lincoln Feast

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The Labor Party is set to return to power in Australia after nine years in opposition following general elections on Saturday, marked by the breakthrough of small parties and independents that have focused on issues environmental.

Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had called his Labor opponent Anthony Albanese to congratulate him on his victory. He also made it known that he was going to leave the head of the Liberal Party.

“I spoke this evening to the leader of the opposition and future Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and I congratulated him on his electoral victory this evening,” said the head of government in a televised address.

Labour, however, is likely to have to ally itself with the Greens and a group known as the ‘teal independents’, who have campaigned on the themes of ethics, equality and the fight against climate change.

The partial results show that Scott Morrison’s pro-mining coalition, branded climate-skeptical by its critics, was punished at the polls in affluent urban centers and particularly in Western Australia.

Symbol of this sanction vote, the Treasurer of the government, Josh Frydenberg, admitted that it would be “difficult” for him to keep his seat in the constituency of Kooyong in Melbourne, yet a stronghold of the Liberal Party, against an independent candidate, Monique Ryan, new to politics.

The lower house of the Australian Parliament has 151 seats and the absolute majority is therefore 76 MPs.

“Unless Labor gets on its high horse and says ‘we have 74, it’s not 76, we’re not forming a government’, there is no other possible government in this Parliament,” commented Antony Green, election specialist for Australian Public Television (ABC).

Labor campaigned against high inflation and weak wage growth, while Scott Morrison tried to highlight low unemployment, the lowest in nearly half a century, but it seems that the theme of the climate imposed itself on part of the electorate after the serious floods and fires experienced by Australia, one of the largest exporters of coal and gas in the world.

The final results could take time to be known due to the historically large number of postal votes.

(Reporting Renju Jose, John Mair and Byron Kaye in Sydney and Sonali Paul in Melbourne; written by Lincoln Feast, French version Camille Raynaud and Bertrand Boucey)

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