Category: Politics

Country faces strong possibility of hung parliament after voters fail to hand either of the top parties a majority.

Australia faces the prospect of a hung parliament, the second in six years, after neither of the country’s major parties won enough seats to form a government in Saturday’s general election.

With 77 percent of the votes counted on Sunday morning, the ruling Conservative coalition led by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was neck-and-neck with the centre-left Labor Party, led by opposition leader Bill Shorten.

Each was projected to had secured about 67 seats, nine short of the majority needed in the 150-seat lower house.

Eleven seats were still too close to call. The Greens had won one, while four seats were taken by independent candidates.

A final outcome is not expected for days, as millions of postal and absentee votes have not yet been processed, with experts saying that these traditionally favour the incumbent.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas, reporting from Sydney, said that given how close the election had been, it might be a while before a clear winner was declared.

“It will take some time because postal votes need to be physically gathered in one place, in each electorate,” he said.

“The electorate commission says it will not do any of the counting on Sunday, nor on Monday – only on Tuesday they will start the whole process, and if some of those seats are very close, disputed, then it could take days before those seats are resolved.”

Close race

A hung parliament remained a possibility, Attorney General George Brandis said.

Projections showed the most Turnbull could hope for was 74 seats, which would force him to cut a deal with independents and minor parties to stay in power.

Despite losing a host of coalition MPs, Turnbull, whose coalition won 90 seats in the 2013 election, sounded a confident tone during a speech to supporters early on Sunday morning.

“Based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government,” the 61-year-old said, conceding, however, that the race was “very, very close”.

Labor’s Shorten told supporters that Turnbull’s government had lost a clear mandate to govern.

“One thing is for sure, the Labor party is back,” he said, but did not claim to have enough votes to form a government.

Political turmoil

Australia’s politics has seen years of turmoil characterised by internal political feuds, with the prime minister changing five times since 2010.

Turnbull came to power last year after ousting Tony Abbott in a Liberal Party coup.

Shorten took the helm at Labor after playing key roles in two leadership coups: the overthrowing of Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard in 2010, and the ousting of Gillard for Rudd again in 2013.

Rudd was soundly defeated by Abbott in 2013, after which Shorten took over the party.

“Political instability is becoming the norm in Australia,” Al Jazeera’s Thomas said.

“This country has now has had four prime ministers in just over three years, and if Bill Shorten becomes prime minister as a result of this election he will be its fifth.

“No prime minister in Australia has held office from one election to the next just three years later in the last decade.”

Former mayor faces challenge of building on economic growth while fighting crime in country of 100 million people.

Rodrigo Duterte has been sworn in as the 16th president of the Philippines in front of an audience of 600 guests and millions more watching on television and online, crowning a rise from little-known mayor to leader of a huge nation.

His youngest child by his side holding the family bible, Duterte was sworn in at noon on Thursday (0400 GMT) in Manila, declaring before a Supreme Court justice that he would “preserve and protect” the constitution, which analysts say will likely see major changes during his six years in office.

“I was elected as president to serve the entire country. I serve everyone. But not only one.”

On his campaign promise to solve crime and drug abuse problem, Duterte said the fight “will be relentless and it will be sustained.”

But he also said he knows “the limits of the power and authority of the president”, adding “I know what is legal and what is not”. During the campaign he had threatened to shoot criminals and kill drug dealers.

The 71-year-old broke with tradition by taking his oath at the Malacanang presidential palace, instead of hosting an inaugural rally, which he said would only cause traffic jams in the already congested streets of the capital.

In a nod to his millions of followers on social media, Duterte’s inauguration was broadcast online using Facebook Live, allowing Filipino workers abroad, who overwhelmingly voted for him, to witness the event.

‘An authentic leader’

Duterte brings to the presidency more than two decades of experience as a mayor seen as having cleaned up Davao, a major city in Mindanao once described as the Philippines’ “murder capital”.

In three decades in politics, he has never lost an election. He is also the first city mayor to be elected president without previously holding a national position.

“I think this is a fresh change,” Jenny Lind Elmaco, a Manila-based political observer and women’s rights advocate, told Al Jazeera.

“Duterte is an authentic leader. He does not hide behind pleasantries, sugar-coat his opinions or mince his words.”

Still, given controversial pronouncements that he would like to see all drug criminals dead, some are concerned about how he will use his power to fight crime.

READ MORE: Duterte – A new era in the Philippines

“I believe we all need to be optimistic about his leadership. But we also have to be vigilant. Governance is too important to be left only to government,” Elmaco, executive director of the women’s group SPARK, said.

Record growth

During the campaign, Duterte vowed to amend the constitution and support federalism, which he said would help end a Muslim rebellion in the country’s south.

With a promise to break apart what he called the domination of “Imperial Manila”, Duterte now faces the challenge of building on strong economic growth, while fulfilling his promise to fight corruption and end crime.

Under his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, the country achieved record growth, but at least a third of the population live below the poverty line.

Jose Torres, director of the National Press Club of the Philippines, told Al Jazeera, that the benefits of economic growth were “not really felt” by the poorest.

He said Duterte was “able to take advantage of the despair of the poor and the middle class” towards the ruling class.

A problem for Duterte, however, is that he has over-promised, Torres said.

“My only hope is he would be able to at least fulfill 25 percent of what he promised.”

British PM to discuss UK referendum result in Brussels for the first time, amid political and economic uncertainty.

Prime Minister David Cameron is heading to Brussels to meet with EU leaders for the first time since Britain voted to leave the bloc.

He is expected on Tuesday to discuss the vote at an EU summit, while the other 27 leaders will gather for the first time without him on Wednesday morning to plan their next moves.

Cameron will first sit down with EU President Donald Tusk, before the European Council meets later in the day. Later, the British prime minister will “explain the situation” to his fellow leaders over a dinner, according to an invitation letter from Tusk.

The EU leaders are likely to stress a willingness to negotiate, but only after London binds itself to a tight two-year exit timetable.

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy met in Berlin on Monday and said Europe needed to respond to its people’s concerns by setting clear goals to improve security, the economy and prospects for young people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has appeared to take a softer line on Britain’s decision than some European leaders, said she had “neither a brake nor an accelerator” to control events, adding: “We just don’t want an impasse.”

Cameron’s trip comes amid deep political uncertainty in Britain, sparked by Thursday’s EU referendum in which he failed to convince Britons to vote to remain in the EU.

Shortly after the results were announced on Friday, he promised to resign by October – opening the way for a leadership contest within the ruling Conservative Party.

The decision for a Brexit – or British exit – also caused global markets to sink, sterling to drop to its lowest level in more than three decades, and it threw the opposition Labour Party into crisis.

Many expect a general election in the near future, following Cameron’s resignation and as several Labour MPs have resigned, citing ineffective leadership by Jeremy Corbyn.

The political, economic and regulatory uncertainty is being felt across the globe at a time when economies are still slowly recovering from the 2008 economic crisis, interest rates are close to zero, and central banks have fewer tools than normal to revive demand if countries enter recession.

‘Who’s running Britain?’

On Monday, there was still an air of confusion in Britain regarding leadership and the plan to leave the EU. Cameron ruled out, however, a second referendum on the issue, following calls to hold another vote.

“Who’s running Britain, and what now is the plan? That’s what everyone wanted to know as government ministers arrived at Downing Street, those who had voted to stay and those whose campaigning to leave had been the undoing of David Cameron. Not one said a word,” said Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee, reporting from London.

“But the notable absentee from the meeting, Boris Johnson, used his newspaper column to argue in far more conciliatory terms that things may not be so different in the future, in particular that EU citizens in the UK will not have to leave, even though many Leave voters wanted exactly that. It was quite different from his tone before the vote.”

Johnson, a Conservative politician and former London mayor, had led the Leave campaign.

“I’ve seen a lot of confusion over the weekend about the status of people living in this country. It is absolutely clear that people from other European countries who are living here have their rights protected,” said our correspondent.

“All that people want to see is a system that is fair, impartial and humane to all people coming from around the world. To put it bluntly, there currently is no government and no opposition.”