Trouble for Turnbull amid leadership woes

Bloomberg

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull won some relief from the chaos imperiling his leadership, with his deputy winning a special election. The next month could be much tougher for him.
Barnaby Joyce was one of two lawmakers from the ruling coalition forced to re-contest their lower house seats because they were in breach of the constitution for being dual citizens. The other, John Alexander, will face voters in Sydney’s electoral district of Bennelong on Dec. 16, with polls showing a much closer fight.
A loss there could heap more pressure on Turnbull, whose leadership is under growing scrutiny. Still, there are no obvious replacements and most of his colleagues realize a messy leadership challenge would probably spell doom for the government by putting voters permanently offside. Turnbull’s minority coalition is lagging in opinion polls, and the next election isn’t due until 2019. Of more immediate concern is the dual citizenship crisis, which has also forced out seven senators across different parties. Tuesday is the deadline for all parliamentarians to declare whether they might also need to resign.
“You get the sense that people are starting to smell blood in the air,” said Nick Economou, a political analyst at Monash University in Melbourne. “Turnbull faces challenges from all fronts and he doesn’t seem to be in control of events. He may well survive into 2018 but his leadership seems to be in terminal decline.”
Joyce, 50, claimed victory for his seat of New England after early counting showed he would easily win. With counting continuing, he will still be absent when parliament reconvenes, leaving the government two seats short of a majority and the Labor opposition looking to exploit the political circumstances as best it can.
A nightmare scenario for Turnbull, 63, would be the resignation of more lower-house coalition lawmakers on Tuesday over dual-nationality concerns. That could threaten the government’s ability to govern, Economou said.
Debate over same-sex marriage legislation due to be voted on in the lower house this week could also get heated, with some conservative members angry that the new law may not contain certain provisions for religious freedoms.
Turnbull’s popularity has fallen since he seized power in a party coup in September 2015, and his government barely survived a general election in July last year. After earning a reputation as a
social progressive before entering parliament in 2004, he alienated many voters as prime minister by sticking with the policies of his more conservative predecessor Tony Abbott.