CANBERRA – Incoming Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised generational change in the warring Liberal party on Friday, seeking to end an internal battle that has damaged the conservative government ahead of an election due by May 2019.
Morrison will be Australia’s sixth prime minister in less than 10 years when he is sworn in around 6 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Friday. He ruled out calling an election in the near term but will still face an early electoral test.
Morrison, who was treasurer under outgoing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, emerged the surprise winner in a three-way challenge for the leadership of the Liberal party brought on by a right-wing rival this week.
“Our job … as we take forward this mantle of leadership as a new generation, is to ensure that we not only bring our party back together, which has been bruised and battered this week, but that … we bring the parliament back together,” Morrison said in his first appearance after his party-room victory.
“The new generation of Liberal leadership is on your side”, he told Australian voters, many of whom are angry and frustrated with a decade of political instability in which no sitting prime minister has lasted a full term.
Outgoing Prime Minister Turnbull is set to resign from parliament, forcing a by-election in his blue-ribbon Sydney seat that could risk the government’s one-seat majority.