Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison is set to be the country’s next prime minister, after incumbent Malcolm Turnbull was ousted on Friday, according to multiple media reports.
It came after Morrison won a three-way battle for the Liberal Party leadership. Other contenders included former Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Morrison won 45 votes to 40 at the leadership meeting, according to local media.
Turnbull did not contest for the vote after it became clear that he had lost the support of majority of his party members.
He had narrowly survived a party leadership challenge against Dutton in a vote earlier this week. Since then, several senior ministers who supported Turnbull changed sides.
Faced with intense pressure to call for a second vote, Turnbull on Friday convened a party meeting after receiving a letter calling for a new leader that was signed by majority of the party members.
One commentator suggested that Friday’s vote was symptomatic of a division between the conservatives and the moderates in the Liberal Party, and as prime minister, Turnbull was caught up in that split.
“We’re heading now into uncharted territory in terms of how prime ministers are chosen in Australia. It’s a revolving door,” Mark Triffitt, a lecturer of public policy at the University of Melbourne, told CNBC’s “The Rundown.“
Morrison is set to become the sixth prime minister in less than a decade.
— Reuters contributed to this report.
