ADELAIDE, Australia — Australians were choosing between two relatively unknown personalities in a tight race today pitting the country’s first female prime minister against her socially conservative challenger just two months after she took power.
Julia Gillard, a 48-year-old former lawyer with a common-law hairdresser spouse, came to power in an internal June 24 coup in her Labor Party during the first term of her predecessor. She goes against Tony Abbott, a married, 52-year-old former Roman Catholic seminarian who barely gained the endorsement eight months ago of his own Liberal Party.
A Newspoll survey predicted a neck-and-neck race, with the one-term Labor Party expected to take 50.2 percent of the vote compared to the Liberal Party-led coalition’s 49.8 percent.
