Bush’s Ally Faces Tough Fight at Australia Polls

SYDNEY – Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, the Pacific region’s only committed member of the “coalition of the willing,” is locked in a tight battle in Saturday’s election. His rival has flaunted his contempt for the Bush administration and pledged to bring 850 Australian servicemen back from Iraq by Christmas.The coalition led by the prime minister’s center-right Liberal Party is a point or two ahead in the final opinion polls. But the race remains too close for Mr. Howard to be confident that he would be returned to office to maintain his close ties to Washington.The election has been fought almost exclusively on domestic issues. The prime minister used his final set-piece speech of the campaign yesterday to highlight Australia’s strong economy, high employment levels, and low interest rates in his claim for a fourth consecutive term.But the outspoken views of the opposition Labor Party leader, Mark Latham, have ensured that the outcome of the election is being closely monitored in Washington and London, where officials will be anxiously observing the political destiny of a leader who has committed troops to Iraq.Overnight news from Washington that American inspectors had found there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq emboldened Mr. Latham to attack Mr. Howard anew yesterday on the wisdom of the Iraqi mission.“Surely an honest prime minister, someone big enough to handle the truth, would ‘fess up to his responsibility today and just say straight to Australians, ‘I made a mistake,'” Mr. Latham said.But Mr. Howard said he acted in good faith on the intelligence presented to him at the time and had no intention of apologizing for committing Australian forces to a mission to depose Saddam Hussein. Before the campaign began six weeks ago, Mr. Latham called President Bush the “most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory.” Then – seemingly on the spur of the moment during a radio interview – he promised to bring all Australian personnel home from Iraq by Christmas. Mr. Howard, a monarchist and pro-American, believes that English-speaking nations with cultural affinities should draw together.He has never shown the enthusiasm of former Australian leaders who have cultivated ties with neighboring countries such as Indonesia, with vast Muslim populations. “I’m a great believer that you should have close relations with the countries whose way of life is closest to your own,” he has said. In his speech yesterday, Mr. Howard said Australia now stood tall in the world “as a country that will take a stand even if it is not popular” and never “cut and run.”The contest between Mr. Howard, who is 65, and Mr. Latham, 22 years younger, does in part reflect a generational shift in outlook. Mr. Howard celebrates Australia’s cultural ties to Britain and America, while Mr. Latham believes, like many countrymen of his age, that Australia should regard itself as part of the Asia-Pacific region.But for the main part, Mr. Howard has presented himself and his party as the guardians of Australia’s booming economy. Mr. Latham was once regarded as an antipodean exponent of Third Way policies, but his campaign has taken on a harder, slightly divisive edge.He has promised to restore collective-bargaining rights to trade unions, prompting Mr. Howard’s taunt that he is taking the country back to the 1970s. Mr. Latham has made no overtures to the business world, and his threats to cut generous government subsidies to private and church schools prompted Mr. Howard yesterday to accuse his opponent of indulging in the politics of envy and class.Australia’s close ties with Washington would not be the only casualty of a Howard defeat. Mr. Latham is an enthusiastic Republican and he would be expected to call for a referendum on severing ties with the monarchy.In the final hours of campaigning, Mr. Howard is telling Australians of the profound consequences of turning his party out of office.“If you change the government, you change the nation,” Mr. Howard said yesterday, and few would doubt his word on that assertion.

Bush’s Ally Faces Tough Fight at Australia Polls

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