
SYDNEY: Anthony Albanese, Australia’s newly elected prime minister, was rushed to hospital last year after a four-wheel-drive slammed into his car.
“I thought that was it,” he told a local radio station.
At the time, his Labor Party trailed behind the conservative government in opinion polls, struggling to cut through during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the near-death experience changed his life, Albanese told the media.
In its wake, the opposition leader, 59, recovered on all fronts: Overcoming serious injury, shrugging off rumblings of a party leadership coup and shedding 18kg – an image revamp that raised some eyebrows.
His suits went from baggy to tailored, his bookish wire-framed glasses switched for “Mad Men”-style black full-rims.
Vitally, though, he was able to pull ahead of the country’s ruling conservative coalition in the polls and carry his party to victory.
Source: 7 News