Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard may have survived a challenge from within her own party, but the dissent that forced Monday's vote isn't going away.

Gillard defeated Kevin Rudd, her former foreign minister, 71 votes to 31 in a ballot of Labor Party lawmakers, ending Rudd's attempt to recapture the job Gillard took from him in an internal party coup in 2010. But she remains unpopular with voters, and unless that changes she could lead Labor to huge losses in elections slated for next year.

Though Rudd said he will not challenge Gillard again, his supporters predicted that party powerbrokers will simply nominate someone else to do so within months.

"If Julia Gillard wins today and we end up in the same position as we are now, in terms of the polls, in several months' time, then my view is the same people who installed Julia Gillard will be looking for a candidate to replace Julia Gillard," Senator Doug Cameron, a Rudd supporter, told Australian Broadcasting Corp before Monday's vote.

Gillard described her win as "overwhelming" after months of "ugly" infighting within the ranks of the center-left party. She said that if the infighting ends and the party is united, Labor could "absolutely win the next election" against the conservative opposition.

Rudd, who warned during his brief leadership campaign that Gillard would lead Labor to certain defeat next year, called on Labor to unite behind her.

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