John Howard expects Kevin Rudd to run for Labor leadership ahead of 2013 election Kevin Rudd following his defeat of John Howard in the 2007 election. FORMER prime minister John Howard believes Kevin Rudd will make a move for the Labor leadership before the September 14 election. While Mr Rudd has denied reports he would challenge Julia Gillard, Mr Howard told 60 Minutes last night that he believed Mr Rudd would make a comeback. "I don't think he's ever given up on the idea of coming back and that's human nature and understandable," Mr Howard said. In the end, leadership is determined by the laws of arithmetic and even the most popular leaders can be removed if people think they'll do better under another one. Mr Howard said Tony Abbott's leadership of the Liberal Party was stable and ruled out a run by Malcolm Turnbull for the position. "I don't believe for a moment the Liberal Party will be led at the next election by anyone other than Tony Abbott," he said. I'm an undisguised supporter of Tony Abbott. He got Kevin Rudd's scalp. The real story of the last three years is that if anyone other than Tony Abbott had been leading the Liberal Party, Kevin Rudd would have remained leader of the Labor Party and would have won the last election, in my opinion, with a clear majority. Mr Howard also said independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor "don't deserve" to be re-elected because their electorates support the opposition.