Howard's boundary

A robust economy and political mastery ensure another term for John Howard as Prime Minister of Australia despite his policy on Iraq and an impressive campaign by Labour leader Mark Latham.

in Singapore

PROVING pundits wrong about the possibility of a photo finish in the general elections, Australian Prime Minister John Howard led his Liberal-National coalition to a remarkable fourth-term victory. Not surprisingly, though, Howard himself spoke of the likelihood of a close race between his coalition and the Opposition Labour party even as late as when he went to the polling booth on October 9.

Analysts on either side of the political divide surmise that the Howard `miracle' is a consequence of his vast political experience and the sustained robustness of the economy.

Yet the race did appear tight. Surprising, because the 13 million eligible voters were all the while aware of Labour leader Mark Latham's political inexperience and of the fact that the economy was doing well. In fact, Howard has presided over a ticking economy almost all through his eight-and-a-half-years at the helm.

Credit, according to political and diplomatic observers, should go to Latham, who in his early 40s and with a relatively new mantle as the Labour leader, was able to define, or at least, set the tone for campaign themes, ranging from the distribution of jobs and wealth, to the controversial deployment of nearly 900 military personnel in Iraq as part of the United States-led occupation forces.

In a sense, the 65-year-old Howard was able to redefine his policies too, without of course departing from the basics, in the light of the sharpness that Latham brought to bear on the issues.

But, the Liberals, a somewhat incongruous self-portrayal by the Australian conservatives, can discern that the Labour party has provided for itself an opportunity for a determined bid for power during the next general elections. It is obvious from the skills that Latham displayed in forcing a seasoned campaigner like Howard on to the back-foot.

It is in this context that the question of the post-Howard leadership of the Liberals has acquired currency. Questions that were almost inevitably hurled at the Prime Minister on his campaign trail were when and whether he would pass the Liberal baton to another leader. These queries were by no means innocent at the height of a poll campaign that was already marked by well-defined battle lines. Implicit in these posers was the polite suggestion, if not a devious innuendo, that the Howard `magic' could easily turn into the Howard `fatigue' in the electoral arena.

Not surprisingly, Howard's response has been one of asserting his sustainable `capabilities' while leaving his political longevity in the hands of his party. Hailing the triumph as a "historic win", he said, in the early hours of October 10, that one would have to reach back to the 1960s to detect an Australian precedent for his achievements. Under his leadership, the coalition has increased its parliamentary majority in two successive general elections.

If this is a combative affirmation of his political success, bordering on the proverbial Midas touch, Howard's game of bringing in the party as the arbiter of his new term in office is as much a case of seeking a niche in history as a matter of wanting to bow out of office at a time of his choosing. He has consistently maintained that he will stay on as Prime Minister as long as his party wants him to govern.

Choices before the Liberals on who should take over from Howard include Treasury wizard Peter Costello and Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party John Anderson. Citing the soundness of the Australian economy as a key factor that tilted the scales in the elections, Howard praised Costello's "stewardship" of the treasury. The refrain was that Costello's ability "has given us one of the strongest economies in the Western world and also the strongest economic conditions that this country, arguably, has experienced since the end of Second World War ".

Howard has also bracketed John Anderson with the other major champion of the victory. He said: "Those two men and all my other Cabinet colleagues have represented a united team." Howard reaffirmed that he had never regarded himself as a "one-man band".

Discernible behind these apparently easy-to-say post-poll platitudes is that the Prime Minister desires to play a man of destiny in Australian politics.

Despite a spirited campaign, Latham failed to cast himself as a clear alternative to a battle-hardened veteran who, in spite of putting Australian soldiers in harm's way in Iraq, had managed to flaunt a clean scorecard of being unscathed in that volatile country under foreign domination.

In Howard's thinking, it was the people's "trust" in him that made all the difference between him and the Labour leader. Viewed differently, and given Latham's hard-sell about issues of long-term concern to the people, it is quite possible that Labour's bid for a decisive say in reshaping Australia in the early years of the 21st century has only been delayed and not denied in the electoral arena.

In an increasingly globalising world, where Canberra may see itself as a worthy candidate for the Group of Eight membership if and when the forum is enlarged, the question of "trust" goes beyond that gained on the Australian electoral stage.

At one stage during the recent campaign, Howard spoke about "the region we live in", a reference to Asia or rather the geopolitical shadow of Asia. In contrast, he was not hesitant to identify Australia with the West, especially with the U.S., Canberra's long-time patron and ally. The issue about where Australia's heart lies, whether in its Asian neighbourhood or in the West, is really an old one, with at least one previous leader in Canberra having sought to correct the permanent pro-West tilt.

Howard's argument now is that Australia's equation with the U.S. as its junior partner, on one side, and its ties with the Asian countries, on the other, should not be seen as a "zero-sum" game. In an interview to this correspondent a few years ago, he even pointed out that Australia sometimes found itself out of step with the U.S. on trade issues.

Seen from Canberra's standpoint, its ties with India have improved, from the frosty `fall-out' of the nuclear tests in 1998. Howard himself recently pointed to Australia's trade-related understandings with Singapore and Thailand as examples of its engagement with Asia. Besides the anti-terror cooperation with Indonesia and the continuing ties with Malaysia and Singapore under the Five-Power Defence Arrangements (the other two powers being the United Kingdom and New Zealand), Australia has sustained its dealings with the Association of South East Asian Nations.

For Howard, though, the really major success story of the country's Asia-neighbourhood policy is its growing economic engagement with China, under his prime ministership. In any case, should the G-8 seek to enlarge itself, Beijing, more than Canberra, might be a strong candidate. Greg Austin, a senior researcher on Canberra's ties with Beijing, has argued that Australia "should prepare better and more public strategies for preventing tension between China and the United States" in the context of Washington's known opposition to the potential or real emergence of a `peer-competitor' now or in the future. A moot point, however, is whether Australia, which would toe the U.S. line in Iraq without demur, is at all in a position to play the good samaritan to set right the geopolitical fault-lines on the Washington-Beijing front.