Harold Holt - Leadership Crisis

Leadership Crisis

Holt's disappearance triggered a leadership crisis in the Liberal Party which briefly raised the possibility of a split in the Coalition. On the morning of 18 December Country Party leader John McEwen publicly declared that neither he nor his Country Party colleagues would serve in a Coalition if the deputy Liberal leader William McMahon were elected as Liberal leader. McEwen refused to give his reasons, saying only that McMahon knew what they were. The following day, 19 December, McEwen was sworn in as Prime Minister on the understanding that his commission would continue only until such time as the Liberals could elect a new leader. With McMahon unexpectedly eliminated from the contest, Senator John Gorton was elected Liberal leader on 9 January 1968, and was sworn in as Prime Minister on 10 January, replacing McEwen.

In the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1968, Holt's widow Zara Holt was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, becoming Dame Zara Holt DBE. She later married for a third time, to a Liberal party colleague of Holt's, Jeff Bate, and was then known as Dame Zara Bate.