Former US Vice President Joe Biden has returned to the popular social media platform Instagram amid speculation that he might be planning to run for president in 2020.

On Friday, Biden posted two photographs of himself and his wife, Jill, participating in a walk for injured veterans in New York. He has gathered more than 1 million followers since then.

According to different polls, Biden leads Trump by several points in a potential 2020 matchup. His blue-collar appeal has put him at the center of talk for months about whether he’ll run against.

According to the Associated Press, Biden will make a decision on the race by early next year. Biden is a strong critic of Trump and his leadership style. He has accused his administration of misunderstanding and misrepresenting the American values.

He has called Trump a “charlatan,” and accused the Republican head of state of taking advantage of frustrated middle class voters.

It seems Biden is remorseful about his decision not to run in the last presidential election, and has claimed that he could have easily defeated Trump.

Biden, a favorite for the 2016 Democratic nomination, announced his decision to not run for the White House in October 2015, cementing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s standing as the front-runner.

The popular vice president, who lost his son Beau to cancer in May 2015, said back then that he was not emotionally prepared to take on the battle and that it was too late for him to enter the race. Trump proceeded to pull off a historic victory against Clinton.

Source: Presstv

Former US President Barack Obama has assailed his successor Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers ahead of the upcoming mid-term congressional elections, urging Democrats to curtail the administration’s “abuses of power” and restore a sense of sanity to US politics by voting in November.

In an unusually blistering attack on Trump, Obama said Friday that Americans were living in dangerous times and accused the president and other Republicans of threatening US democracy, dividing the country and undermining Washington’s global alliances.

“In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics,” he said in a speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There is actually only one check on bad policy and abuses of power, and that’s you and your vote.”

Obama also mocked Trump for taking credit for the recent economic growth that began under Obama’s administration, and said Trump was exploiting economic anger and cultural fears that have grown in recent years amid societal upheavals.

Trump was dismissive of Obama’s speech. “I’m sorry, I watched it but I fell asleep,” he said during a fundraiser in Fargo, North Dakota. “I found that he’s very, very good for sleeping.”

Other Republicans also shrugged off Obama’s criticism. “In 2016, voters rejected President Obama’s policies and his dismissiveness towards half the country. Doubling down on that strategy won’t work in 2018 either,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens.

Both major political parties are urging their supporters to vote in the November 6 midterm elections, when Democrats need to gain 23 seats in the House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities in both chambers of Congress and frustrate Trump’s agenda.

The November elections have been seen as a referendum on Trump, who faces a widening federal investigation over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and growing questions about his fitness for office, even by some within his own administration.

The White House has been shaken by an explosive, anonymous article on The New York Times that has plunged Trump’s presidency into its worst crisis yet.

The unsigned article published Wednesday, claimed that senior US officials were quietly working within the Trump administration to frustrate the president’s “worst inclinations.”

Trump has slammed the “gutless coward” who wrote the article and suggested he might take action against the newspaper.

Many senior members of US President Donald Trump’s administration are so alarmed by his “erratic” and “amoral” behavior that they are actively working to undermine him and protect the country from his worst impulses, according to an anonymous “senior official” in the White House.

“President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader,” the official wrote in The New York Times Wednesday.

“The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the official wrote  in an op-ed article entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” the official said.

In the piece, the official described “early whispers” among members of Trump’s cabinet to take steps to remove him as president, but added they decided against it to avoid a constitutional crisis.

The official wrote that the root of the problem was that Trump is amoral and not moored to any discernible principles that guide his decision-making.

Asked about the column during a White House event, Trump called it a “gutless editorial,” bashed the New York Times as “failing,” and ticked off economic achievements that he said were proof of his leadership.

The unsigned piece appeared to reinforce the claims made in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward, excerpts of which were made public Tuesday, that describes a virtual cabal of high-minded White House and cabinet officials scheming to prevent Trump from taking decisions damaging to the US economy and national security.

The Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the book by the veteran chronicler of modern presidents, reported Tuesday that Woodward describes Trump manically pressing his staff for actions that could lead to major conflict — leaving them little choice but to disregard his orders.

The White House has condemned Woodward’s book as “nothing more than fabricated stories,” and Trump called it “a work of fiction.”

But the Times op-ed suggests that dissent and resistance inside Trump’s White House are even deeper than Woodward described.

The US Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, has turned into utter chaos as angry protests erupted and Democrats criticized Republicans for withholding documents about Kavanaugh’s past service at the White House.

It took the nominee over seven hours to be able to deliver his opening statement during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday as shouting protesters were arrested in droves.

According to US Capitol police, 61 protesters were removed from the room and charged with disorderly conduct, along with nine more outside the hearing. The protesters, mostly women, were shouting slogans like “This is a travesty of justice”, “Our democracy is broken” and “Vote no on Kavanaugh.”

Meanwhile, Democratic senators repeatedly interrupted the committee’s Republican chairman Chuck Grassley at the outset of the hearing, quickly turning the session into a ruckus.

They condemned the withholding of the documents and tried to have the proceedings adjourned, as Grassley struggled to maintain order.

Democratic Senator Cory Booker said the withholding of the documents has left lawmakers unable to properly vet Kavanaugh.

“We cannot possibly move forward. We have not had an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing,” Democratic Senator Kamala Harris said.

“This is the first confirmation for a Supreme Court justice I’ve seen, basically, according to mob rule,” Republican Senator John Cornyn said, a characterization Democrats rejected.

In response, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said, “What we’ve heard is the noise of democracy.”

Grassley described the Democrats’ request to halt the hearing “out of order,” accusing them of obstruction.

Republicans, who hold a slim Senate majority, can confirm 53-year-old Kavanaugh if they stay united. There were no signs of Republican defections.

If confirmed, Kavanaugh is expected to move the court, with an already conservative majority, further to the right. Senate Democratic leaders, however, have pledged a fierce fight to try to block his confirmation.

On Twitter, Trump reacted angrily, saying the hearing was “truly a display of how mean, angry and despicable the other side is.”

He accused Democrats of “looking to inflict pain and embarrassment” on Kavanaugh.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has taken yet another swipe at his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the powerful Justice Department, for not blocking two damaging investigations that undermined two Republican candidates ahead of the mid-term congressional elections.

On August 8, Representative Christopher Collins, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president, was indicted for alleged insider trading, wire fraud, conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

According to the indictment, the New York lawmaker was allegedly involved to a scheme to gain insider information about Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited, a biotechnology company headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

His son, Cameron Collins, and the father of his son’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, were also arrested on the same charges. Two weeks later, Representative Duncan Hunter and his wife were indicted by a federal grand jury for spending some $250,000 of campaign funds for family vacations and other personal expenses over a period of seven years.

Just like Collins, the San Diego Republican has remained defiant in face of the charges, accusing prosecutors of having political motives. Both Collins and Hunter are campaigning for re-election in November.

The Trump team is worried that the indictments would help Democrats to score a decisive victory in the House of Representatives and launch their much-anticipated attempt to impeach the Republican president.

This is not the first time that Trump is lashing out at Sessions. The president has regularly taken jabs at Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing a high-profile probe into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia, which allowed DOJ’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller to dig deep into in the hope of finding any hints of a possible “collusion.”

In late August, Sessions finally hit back at his boss, saying he will not allow political pressure to influence the work being done at the department.

US President Donald Trump has shrugged off the findings of a new poll that shows nearly half of Americans now support his impeachment.

Trump questioned  the accuracy of the ABC News/Washington Post poll in a tweet without mentioning the survey’s latest finding on the question of impeachment.

“The ABC/Washington Post Poll was by far the least accurate one 2 weeks out from the 2016 Election,” he posted on Twitter Friday evening.

“I call it a suppression poll – but by Election Day they brought us, out of shame, to about even. They will never learn!”

The survey, released on Friday, has found that 49 percent of Americans believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump. That is more than the percentage of voters – 46 percent — who do not support impeachment.

The poll also showed that 60 percent of voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, a new low.

In the previous ABC News/Washington Post poll in April, Trump’s approval rating stood at 40 percent and his disapproval rating was 56 percent.

Several Democratic Party lawmakers have publicly supported bringing impeachment proceedings against Trump since his longtime attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last week to charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and violations of election campaign finance laws.

Cohen’s campaign finance law violations stem from hush money payments the lawyer arranged during the 2016 US presidential campaign to women who allegedly had affairs with Trump. Trump is also under growing pressure after a guilty verdict for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

“I don’t think they can impeach somebody that’s doing a great job. You look at the economy, you look at jobs, you look at foreign, what’s going on with other countries. You look at trade deals. I’m doing a great job,” he said.

Vice President Pence acknowledged that Democrats would l try to impeach President Trump if they regain the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.

“They’re all talking about it, and so I take them at their word, even though some of them have decided to not talk about that quite so much,” Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview published Wednesday.

Source: Presstv

In the mediation debate in the UN Security Council on August 29, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who has banned Inner City Press from the UN since July 3 as it asked about his inaction on Cameroon said, “Since the beginning of my tenure, one of my key priorities has been a surge in diplomacy for peace… My special envoys and representatives pursue consultations, good offices, and formal talks, often alongside envoys and mediators from regional organizations or Member States.”

But simply as one pertinent example, what have Guterres and his envoy Francois Lounceny Fall accomplished amid the carnage in Southern Cameroons. Nothing – or worse. Fall equated secessionists with extremists, thereby providing UN ground cover for their targeting and killing. Guterres as Inner City Press has been informed by sources on the 38th floor and in the Department of Political Affairs decided to remain silent on the killing of Anglophones in order to curry favor with Cameroon’s Ambassador Tommo Monthe, chair of the UN Budget Committee in which Guterres wanted to push through proposal like his “Global Service Delivery Mechanism” which failed. This is the surge in diplomacy?

And, angry at Inner City Press’ coverage, rather than try to get mediation – a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Jose Ramos-Horta, has reached out to that effect – Guterres instead had Inner City Press roughed up right after it spoke with Tommo Monthe on July 3, and banned since, with the prospect of not banned from covering the General Assembly high level week for the first time in 11 years. What surge in diplomacy? It is censorship.

Culled from Inner Press

South Africa’s government has summoned US Chargé d’Affaires Jessye Lapenn over US President Donald Trump’s tweet on Pretoria’s land policy.

On his Twitter on Wednesday, Trump said he had asked his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate South Africa’s “land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killing of farmers.”

Shortly after Trump’s comment, South Africa responded in a tweet that it “totally rejects this narrow perception, which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.”

The South African government added that the country would “speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide” the nation.

Early this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was moving ahead with plans to alter the constitution in order to allow the expropriation of land without compensation, as white South Africans still owned most of the country’s land nearly a quarter of a century after the collapse of the apartheid system in South Africa.

Ramaphosa is trying to accelerate land reform plans before the 2019 general elections in order to “undo a grave historical injustice” against the black people during colonialism and the apartheid era that ended in 1994.

White community in South Africa constitute eight percent of the population possessing 72 percent of farms, while only four percent of the lands are owned by black people making up 80 percent of the population.

According to the AgriSA, an association of agricultural groups across South Africa, 47 farmers have been killed in South Africa since 2017.

The number of attacks on farmers has undergone an increase from 478 in 2016-17 to 561 this year, but the government’s involvement in the killings remains unclear.

Source: Presstv

The conflict in Southern Cameroons, which started as a simple peaceful demonstration by lawyers and teachers seeking better working conditions, will surely not be disappearing from the national and internal scenes anytime, soon.

Those who thought the South West and North West regions were “two cubes of sugar” which could easily melt in a huge ocean of water, are today still wondering why the expected results have not yet been achieved.

The “two cubes of sugar” seem to have been wrapped up in plastic paper before they were thrown into the ocean. Plastic is not bio-degradable. This implies the cubes of sugar will stay intact for a long time. There was a clear misunderstanding of things on the part of the government. It is, however, becoming clear that the minority can bring about change in a society.

Southern Cameroonians, who constitute only 20% of the country’s population, are teaching the majority that real freedom never gets delivered to the oppressed on a platter of gold. Real freedom is seized and Southern Cameroonians are ready to grab theirs and run away with it.

But the freedom is coming at a high cost. Many Cameroonians have been sent to an early grave and many are in hospitals battling for the lives as a result of the conflict; a conflict that could have been avoided if the Yaoundé government had opted for sincere and inclusive dialogue.

The country is today awash with bad news and dangerous weapons. The killings are going on unabated. Army soldiers are still engaged in fierce fighting with Southern Cameroonians fighters who hold that only independence from the Yaoundé government will bring peace to the two English-speaking regions.

The government, which is a more organized structure, has unfortunately played into the hands of the Southern Cameroonians fighters by resorting to senseless killing of civilians. This has helped to diminish its stance in the eyes of the population.

The freedom fighters, for their part, are also doing their best to defend themselves. Of course, the killing and maiming of army soldiers is not something anybody should hail, but the military’s killing of anything and anybody that comes into its crosshairs sounds more like wickedness and desperation.

The population would have been a good ally in this fight against an enemy that is lurking in the jungle. But the government’s strategy has made it impossible for the civilian population to collaborate with a government many Southern Cameroonians consider as an “army of death”.

The situation is really sticky. The government’s arrogance has made it hard for any reasonable person to sympathize with it. Even the French-speaking majority which initially was inimical to the idea of a rebellion in the English-speaking parts of the country is now turning against the government for mismanaging a simple protest by lawyers and teachers.

Today, Francophones see their politicians as a bunch of people who have ganged up against the people. The refusal by government officials that the Southern Cameroons crisis should not be discussed at the National Assembly or Senate has angered many Francophones and many of them are now speaking out against the government.

The conflict will not be petering out anytime soon. With the passage of every blessed day, things are only getting worse. Southern Cameroonian fighters are already acquiring sophisticated weapons and this has made the killing of army soldiers look like a walk in the park.

Today, it is widely held that killing a soldier is normal. There is a price on the head of every soldier. Anybody who kills a soldier is immediately awarded CFAF 200,000 and this has transformed many Southern Cameroonians into hunters of soldiers. The message is clear. Thou shall not be a soldier. Or, if you are one, then you must stay away from Southern Cameroons.

An end to this conflict is not in sight. There are still many more scenes and they will be playing out in a manner that will be far from being pleasant. Today, Buea has witnessed some heavy shooting and residents of the city are confused and do not know who is behind the shooting.

Rumor has it that the months of September and October will be the worst in the history of this conflict that has already resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 Cameroonians. With the presidential election approaching, it is clear that the government will want to assert its authority over the two regions and this will meet with stiff resistance from Southern Cameroonian fighters who will surely use ghost towns to paralyze the cities and make mincemeat of the election.

The presidential election is spreading fear among the civilian population. Southern Cameroonians are simply not taking part in what they consider a foreign election. At best, they consider the election a sham. Armed groups in the regions have already put out their message regarding this election. If you vote, yours will be the kingdom of death. Many Southern Cameroonians are aware of this and their apathy toward the election is easy to notice.

Mamfe is still boiling. Batibo is still in the spotlight. The killing of soldiers in that part of the country is still very attractive, as long the government continues to enforce its policy of suppression and total submission. The first Ambazonian high school has been set up in Batibo, a small city of less than 5,000 people.

Videos of the school are online and have been visited by many Internet users. Many observers hold that Batibo will soon be a victim of a catastrophic attack by the government which is still trying to prove that it has total control over the country. It is obvious that more blood will soon be flowing and it will be the ordinary civilian who will pay the price.

The Southern Cameroons crisis will continue to snowball as each side seeks to prove that it is making substantial territorial gains. While the government may have greater firepower, it is clear that it has lost its authority in many parts of Southern Cameroons.

While other regions of the country are witnessing some political movement as political party officials take to campaigning to unseat the incumbent, Paul Biya, the two English-speaking regions seem to be indifferent to what is happening in other parts of the country.

Political leaders seem to consider the English-speaking regions as very dangerous for them, although all of them need the votes from those regions, conscious of the fact that the ruling party does not stand a chance there. But the fear of the unknown is scaring all of them.

Even government officials from the English-speaking regions are not keen on going to their constituencies to campaign. They are aware of their fate. They have been warned and there is a huge price on their heads. The pressure is unbearable for many local administrative officials. Many chiefs are quietly abdicating. Many are seeking refuge either in Nigeria or East Cameroon. They are simply in exile. Senior government officials, for their part, are keeping a very low profile and many have already been kidnapped and taken to Southern Cameroonian “green jails”.

Yesterday, the North West region was in the spotlight for the wrong reason. A contingent of army soldiers was ambushed in Zua in the North West region and some 20 army soldiers are believed to have met their unfortunate fate in this small town. Those who carried out this act of brutality are already expecting payment from their masters who have not yet been identified by the government.

They are also aware that government reprisals will soon come and many of them have already packed and left. That appears to be the new rule. Once an army soldier is killed, the entire village or city has to move into the jungle which is now considered a “five star hotel” and it is believed to be safer than the city itself, as army soldiers are wont to killing anybody who crosses their path after a clash.

All of this drama is playing out while the country’s president, Paul Biya, and his health minister, Mama Fouda, are in Switzerland seeking better health care for themselves, although they have been arguing that their government has built many hospitals in the country. But Cameroonians cannot be fooled. They consider those hospitals as consultation clinics which do not have the proper equipment.

Cameroonians are used to such bad news. They are used to their leaders sending their children abroad for better education while they stay at home to deal with the poor infrastructure that the government has developed. Quality of education has been on the decline for years and the government does not seem to be bothered.

The roads, for their part, leave much to be desired. Bad news has become the staple of many Cameroonians. If it is not a ghastly road accident, it is a serious case of corruption where a government official has absconded with state money. And there are unfortunately many government officials who have made pilfering their favorite sport.

Cameroon has successfully placed itself among the most corrupt countries in the world. Under Peter Mafany Musonge, the country’s Prime Minister in the 1990s, Cameroon topped the charts twice and ever since, many government officials have been trying to outdo each other. The country’s future is really bleak and the prognoses are not good.

But there is more bad news on the horizon. The current gloomy prognoses have very little to do with the ruling party’s favorite sport – corruption. It is more about their natural candidate’s health and the country’s declining economic situation. The news is not good for the ruling party and there is panic among party stalwarts.

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, also known as the “monarch” is fighting for his health in a Swiss hospital. At almost 86, Mr. Biya is no longer strong enough to put up a good fight against a failing heart and a heady prostrate that has been a nightmare to the ailing monarch.

According to a Cameroon Intelligence Report source in Switzerland that is very close to the ailing monarch’s entourage, the prognosis are gloomy and this is sowing confusion among those surrounding the monarch. Mr. Biya who has been sick for many years, now believes that the stressful Southern Cameroons crisis is finally taking its toll.

Last week, the very first test results clearly indicated that the “monarch” had a health crisis on his hands. A Cameroon Intelligence Report source in Switzerland has hinted that the situation is concerning and from every indication; the monarch has not got much time left. More tests were ordered this week and things are not improving. Time is not on Mr. Biya’s side and his age is more of a concern to his Swiss doctors who now think they have a crisis on their hands.

A source close to Mr. Biya’s entourage has intimated that Mr. Biya’s trip to Switzerland was prompted by the fact that his health condition was already spiraling out of control. The monarch’s heart was already sounding like the engine of an old car and this was a major concern to his collaborators who count on him for them to keep their positions and to continue robbing the country blind.

There is pandemonium within Mr. Biya’s circle. Many of his collaborators fear that he might not be able to take the heat that comes with a strenuous exercise like an election campaign. The people around him are concerned and are working round the clock to ensure nothing filters out of the bad situation that is playing out in Switzerland. The location of his hospital has been kept secret for some time in the belief that angry Cameroonians will not show up to disrupt the monarch’s recovery.

But the anger that inhabits Cameroonians has driven them to locate the hospital where Mr. Biya is battling for his life. Any news about the monarch travels very fast. His poor economic and political performance has made him the most hated person in the country.

Many Cameroonians have seen their dreams washed away by Mr. Biya’s mismanagement and corruption. Millions of Cameroonians are unemployed in their own country and their parents are dying of preventable and curable diseases. Millions have fled the dehumanizing poverty that the ruling party has manufactured. The financial burden of Mr. Biya’s incompetence has fallen on the country’s Diaspora which is hell-bent on making the monarch pay for the destruction he has wreaked on the country.

Mr. Biya is currently hospitalized at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève where millions of dollars are being paid for his failing health. The Cameroonian tax-payer is footing the bill. Mr. Biya’s entourage is 50-man strong and all the staff accompanying him are lodged in world-class hotels. This is costing the country’s treasury an arm and a leg. That is why activists have set up camp opposite the hospital to ensure that the Swiss population is aware of the financial disaster he has hatched in his country.

Mr. Biya and his government burn through money like wild fire. Reserves left by the country’s first president were exhausted in less than two years. Much of that money cannot be accounted for. The news about his hospitalization travelled very fast, reaching many Cameroonians who are so disappointed with a man whom they thought held out a lot of hope for them. Social media is awash with pictures and videos of the hospital in which he is hospitalized.

Mr. Biya’s poor and declining health is on many lips at the Unity Palace where many fear he might not make it this time around. His party members, especially those of the Central Committee, are working hard behind the scenes to ensure that if the inevitable happens, they will be able to have a candidate who will unite the party and win the upcoming presidential election.

Mr. Biya’s dismal economic and political performance is leaving him and his collaborators in a permanent state of confusion, especially as the presidential election is in the offing. They have nothing new to deliver to the electorate. Their lies have caught up with them. The pressure is on and opposition parties are making hay while the sun shines.

Added to this is the pressure from the international community about the deteriorating situation in Southern Cameroons. The pressure has exacerbated things, and with state coffers drying up very fast, the monarch is losing sleep. The Southern Cameroons crisis has been very disruptive. The pressure is on. Evaporating financial resources imply the government cannot prosecute its war in Southern Cameroons convincingly and its foreign allies are no more forthcoming financially.

The unnecessary war in Southern Cameroons is taking up a huge part of the state’s budget and with no end in sight; the government is in for rough times. Southern Cameroonian fighters are as heady as ragweed. They keep on resurfacing on turf the government erroneously thinks it is its own. The road ahead is long, rough and bumpy. The signs are not good both for Mr. Biya’s health and the economy. The country is really going through a rough patch.

Cameroon is mired in a conflict that will not go away anytime soon if the government and Southern Cameroonian fighters do not head to the negotiating table. Despite the shocking number of deaths, there is still room for dialogue. The international community must push both sides to the negotiating table if the senseless killings have to stop. If the world does not intervene, it will surely witness Rwanda play out in Cameroon.

By Kingsley Betek

Scott Morrison was installed as Australia’s seventh prime minister in 11 years Friday after a stunning Liberal party revolt instigated by hardline conservatives unseated moderate Malcolm Turnbull.

Former home affairs minister Peter Dutton, an ex-police officer and right-winger, was the driving force behind the move to oust Turnbull after a party backlash against his more liberal policies.

But after a torrid week of political intrigue in Canberra it was Morrison, a Turnbull ally who served as treasurer, who won a party vote 45-40.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, another Turnbull backer, was also in the running but was eliminated in the first round of voting.

“My course from here is to provide absolute loyalty to Scott Morrison,” Dutton, who Turnbull accused of bullying and intimidation in the move to knife him, said in brief comments afterwards.

Turnbull, who has pledged to quit parliament after his near three-year reign came to an end, survived one attempt to oust him on Tuesday, but ministers then began defecting, throwing the government into crisis.

His departure from politics will spark a by-election for his Sydney seat, threatening the government’s wafer-thin one-seat parliamentary majority.

Thwarted ambitions 

Dutton, who favors slashing migrant numbers and even pulling Australia out of the Paris climate agreement, was the sole candidate to be prime minister until Thursday when Morrison and Bishop entered the fray to try to halt his power grab.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott, an arch conservative widely seen as the instigator of the move to get rid of Turnbull, said it was now important to “save the government” with national elections due by the middle of next year.

Turnbull must now pay a visit to the Governor-General to officially inform him of events and once there will recommend Morrison to form a new government.

Morrison, an evangelical Christian and former immigration minister, who took credit for “stop the boats” — a harsh policy to halt asylum-seekers from entering Australia — is further to the right than Turnbull but not as hardline as some in the party.

The unrest is the latest chapter in a turbulent decade for Australian politics, which has frequently descended into maneuvering and backstabbing that has alienated voters.

No leader has managed to serve out a full term since former Prime Minister John Howard lost the 2007 election, in a remarkable revolving door at Canberra’s parliament house.

Dutton needed to prove he had majority backing before launching his tilt at the leadership, or 43 signatures from within the party’s parliamentary group — a requirement for him to force a second crack at the top job.

Defense Industry Minister Christopher Pyne, another Turnbull ally, blasted disruptive elements inside his party for bringing on the challenge.

“I think some people should have considered the greater good of the people of Australia, and the government, rather than their own self-interest and ambition,” he said.

Complicating matters, Dutton was referred to the solicitor-general over his eligibility to sit in parliament due to family financial interests in childcare centers that receive government subsidies — a possible breach of constitutional rules.

The nation’s top lawyer Friday cleared him to continue in parliament.

One minister was so disillusioned with the push to oust Turnbull that he took to Twitter to apologize to the Australian people.

“Australia. We owe you an apology. I’m sorry. You deserve better than many of the things our Federal Parliament has served up to you for the past 10 years,” wrote Nationals MP Darren Chester, whose party is in coalition with the Liberals.

(Source: AFP)