By Vittorio Hernandez: Subscribe to Vittorio's RSS feed
February 22, 2012 8:58 PM EST
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd resigned from his post Wednesday night, leading to a leadership battle in the Australian Labor Party. Rudd, who was ousted as prime minister by Julia Gillard in 2010, said he has lost her confidence.
Gillard set the formal leadership ballot for Monday at 10 a.m., which she announced in a press conference in Adelaide.
Rudd said in another press conference before he left Washington that he was shocked and disappointed with the tone of the vicious personal attacks on him, which he said have no place in Australian politics.
The prime minister said the 2010 election campaign was sabotaged by Rudd's camp which ran a long-running destabilisation campaign. She ended her press conference by castigating a "rude reporter."
Rudd's wife, Therese Rein, held her own press conference where she urged voters to get in touch with their local Labor MPs and senators to tell them who they want to lead the ALP.
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"What ordinary people tell me is that they trust Kevin. They respect him, they know how hard he worked... they know he's committed, they know he's worked hard as foreign minister and tried to do the very best he could," Rein said.
In case she loses in the Monday leadership election, Gillard said she would not continue to contest the prime ministership and encouraged Rudd to make the same pledge. However, she expressed confidence that she will retain her post.
"I expect to receive the support of my colleagues.... If I do not receive the support of my colleagues I want to make it clear that I will go to the back bench and renounce any leadership ambitions," Gillard said.
"I anticipate that Kevin Rudd will be a contender in the leadership ballot and I ask him to give the same undertaking that he will go to the back bench and renounce leadership ambitions," she added.
Gillard said Australians are sick of the political infighting and want it to end. The prime minister acknowledged that Rudd was an excellent campaigner in 2007, but the government he led was paralysed by his chaotic and dysfunctional work patterns. Gillard accused her predecessor or being focused on the next news cycle and the next photo opportunity.
Simon Crean, whom Rudd accused of attacking him, which led to the current leadership battle, said the former prime minister was grandstanding by timing his resignation announcement, which was the middle of the night in Washington, with Australia's evening news.
"The caucus will decide, but not because Kevin's called it on. All he's done is to resign dramatically... and (he'll fly home) and make another dramatic statement on Sunday, while the party bleeds," Crean told Radio National.
Crean said he would be surprised if the former foreign minister would get 30 votes in Monday's leadership ballot.
Treasurer Wayne Swan backed Gillard and described Rudd's leadership as "dysfunctional decision making and a deeply demeaning attitude towards other people."
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