Australia

The end of the road?

Voters prepare to pass judgment on Australia's John Howard

AS HE headed to a general election on Saturday November 24th John Howard, Australia’s prime minister, was still hoping that he might, somehow, clinch a fifth term for the conservative coalition that he first led to power over 11 years ago. But it appeared more likely that he faced defeat, perhaps a decisive one, by the opposition Labor Party.

One last minute poll gave Labor a 14-point lead over the coalition, after calculating the distribution of votes from small parties under Australia’s preferential system. If so, Labor would have more than twice the 4.8% swing it needs to secure a majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives. For months polls have told a similar story. As long ago as May Mr Howard gave warning to his conservative Liberal Party, the main coalition partner, that it risked “annihilation” if such polls proved accurate.

Mr Howard could claim comfort at least from one poll on the eve of voting which suggested that Labor’s lead was too small to provide the opposition with a comfortable win. And no one was discounting the possibility of a late swing back to Mr Howard in crucial marginal seats, turning the result into a cliffhanger. But one such seat Mr Howard is fighting to keep is his own constituency of Bennelong, in northern Sydney. Revised boundaries, an influx of Asian immigrants and a strong challenge by Labor’s candidate, Maxine McKew, a popular former television presenter, have rendered this once safe constituency a borderline one. Campaigning on Friday in north Queensland, a state where Labor hopes to make big gains, Mr Howard said he sensed a “tide coming back” to the coalition.

Nevertheless Kevin Rudd, the opposition leader, finished the six-week campaign as favourite to win. Since he took charge of Labor last December, Mr Rudd has revived its spirits after four successive election losses to Mr Howard since 1996. Polls suggest that voters much prefer him to the 68-year-old prime minister. At 50, Mr Rudd has made the running as a modern leader, promising to do more to tackle climate change and to overhaul education, two issues Mr Howard had largely ignored. He has also undertaken to withdraw Australia’s 500 ground troops from Iraq, and has suggested that a Labor government would become less beholden to America in foreign policy.

Mr Rudd’s biggest challenge has been to dispel fears that a Labor government would be hostage to union bosses and would wreck Australia’s booming economy. His cautious spending promises have helped to assure voters. Mr Howard launched his campaign with more than A$9 billion ($8 billion) worth of promises. Cleverly, Mr Rudd’s promises were worth a quarter of that. Coming after a warning from Australia’s central bank that government spending was contributing to inflationary pressures, Mr Rudd made himself look more responsible than the incumbent, declaring: “I am saying loud and clear, that this sort of reckless spending must stop.”

For his part, Mr Howard’s campaign has been dogged by doubts about his future as Liberal Party leader. Under pressure in September he reluctantly pledged to retire “well into” a fifth term and hand over to Peter Costello, the country’s younger finance minister. Since then, Labor has painted Mr Howard as a lame duck leader.

Nor did a scandal, two days before the election, help the ruling coalition. Several Liberal supporters were nabbed in Lindsay, a marginal western Sydney electorate, distributing leaflets that purported to come from a non-existent Islamic organisation. The leaflets falsely portrayed the Labor Party as supporting certain Muslim terrorists and the construction of a mosque in the electorate. Mr Howard dissociated himself from the affair, but it will not endear his party to voters.

Labor must gain 16 seats to win. Mr Howard will be banking on his record as Australia’s second longest-serving prime minister, presiding over the country’s longest economic growth in memory, to deprive his opponents of them. It may, somehow, still be possible for Mr Howard to hang on. But the odds are against him.