Anthony Albanese, who is the prime minister of Australia today, is a pragmatic leader who came from a working-class background and promised to end the divisions in the country.
"I want every parent to have the opportunity to tell their child that regardless of where he comes from or where he lives, in Australia the door of opportunity is open for all of us," said the new Australian prime minister, whom many call Albi, in his victory speech.
"I want to change the country. I want to change the way politics works in this country," the Labor leader said as he prepared to replace a nine-year-old Conservative government after winning parliamentary elections on Saturday.
"I want a relationship based on cooperation. I want to bring people together, including states and territories as well as local government... just as I will bring together unions and employees and other organizations at the employment summit in the coming months”.
In the focus of Labor's election campaign, the emphasis was on the working-class background of Albanese - a boy raised in social housing by a single mother with a disability pension - and on his image as a pragmatic unifier.
"We didn't have much, but it was enough," said Albanese, talking about his upbringing.
Albanese grew up in Camperdown, a suburb of Sydney, believing his father had died in a car accident. It was only as a teenager that he learned from his mother that his father was alive and in Italy. Albanese repeatedly said that he did not want to find his father at the time. However, after the death of his mother, he found his father, half-brother and half-sister in 2009.
His rise from humble beginnings is something the man he defeated in the election, outgoing Prime Minister Scott Morrison, highlighted when asked during a televised debate to say what he admired about his opponent.
"What I always admired about Anthony was that he never forgot where he came from," Morrison said during the debate, praising Albanese's determination and efforts.
Albanese, 59, entered parliament in 1996 - at the start of the first of two decades Labor spent in opposition. The return of the Labor Party to power, from 2007 to 2013, was marked by quarrels within the leadership, and he then openly criticized both sides.
During those years, he gained the reputation of a man who is ready to cooperate beyond ideological lines, as the leader of the Chamber of Deputies.
After losing the 2010 election, Labor was part of the country's first minority government in 70 years, which meant it needed the support of Conservative and independent MPs to pass the legislation.
However, according to the estimates of some political analysts - the number of laws passed compared to the number of days of that government - it turned out to be one of the most productive parliaments in the history of Australia.
"There was an attempt to cause chaos, but Anthony, as the leader of the House of Representatives, made sure that the work of the government continued," said Craig Emerson, who was the minister of commerce in that government.
At only 12 years old, Albanese helped organize a strike that prevented his mother's social housing from being sold to investors.
Those who know Australia's new prime minister say he is genuinely driven by a blend of pragmatism and concern for social justice that he acquired during his childhood struggles. As a teenager, he complained to an MP that his mother's stove was broken.
"It gave me the determination, every day, to help people like me grow up to have a better life," Albanese said in January, recalling how at times, when his mother had no money, he depended on neighbors for food.
Albanese is the first in his family to attend university. He graduated in economics and got involved in student politics.
When he was 22, he was elected president of Young Labour, the party's youth wing, and worked as a researcher during the reformist government of Bob Hawke, Labour's longest-serving prime minister.
"Anthony has the capacity to look beyond party political alliances," said Robert Tickner, a former Labor member to whom Albanese complained about his mother's broken stove.
The future prime minister "believes in the idea that there are people of good will in the community," Tickner said in a telephone interview with Reuters. "He is not exclusive".
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