Aussie PM pledges the ‘real Julia’

AUSTRALIA: Struggling Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard vowed Monday to shed her campaign’s strict stage management and be herself, as a new poll showed this month’s election teetering on a knife edge.

Gillard, who has come under fire for her highly-controlled and scripted performances ahead of the August 21 election, said she would throw out the campaign rule book, reveal “the real Julia” and take control of her campaign.

The shift towards a personality-driven campaign against her conservative rival Tony Abbott came as new opinion poll showed Gillard’s Labor Party losing ground against the opposition, putting the election on a 50-50 knife edge.

“Its time for me to make sure the real Julia is well and truly on display, so I’m going to step up and take personal control of what we do in the campaign from this point,” the country’s first woman leader told the Daily Telegraph.

In recent weeks, Gillard’s popularity has imploded following a series of damaging high-level leaks about her from within her party.

Sydney, Monday, AFP