Howard back in the saddle as P.M.

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, NOV. 10. The Australian Prime Minister, Mr. John Howard, today claimed victory in a general election in which voters firmly backed his stand against allowing rising numbers of desperate boat people into the country. The Opposition leader, Mr. Kim Beazley, conceded defeat and said he would stand down as leader of the Labour party.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's computer projection gave Mr. Howard's Liberal party 66 seats, its coalition partners, the National party 14, and the Labour Party 67 seats with three seats going to independents in the 150-seat house of representatives. The current vote count shows that the Liberal- National coalition has won a total of 51 per cent of the vote - gaining two per cent nationally from Labour - whose vote share stands at 49 per cent.

Apart for the House of Representatives, elections also took place to 40 of the 76 Senate seats. The marginal Green party, it would appear, has done well in the polls - doubling its share of the vote to 5.5 per cent.

Just before the elections were announced in October, the Prime Minister was riding high on an anti-refugee platform; some Australian commentators even termed the stance ``racist''. They have gone as far as to say that the election brought the issue of ``race'' to the forefront. Mr. Beazley did manage to get his bit in as the campaign got going - promising to remove an unpopular 10 per cent general sales tax imposed by the Howard Government from select items.

The ``popular'' position taken on the all-crucial issue of refugees seems to have done the trick for Mr. Howard. There is little doubt that the coalition has exploited and brought to the fore the anti-immigrant, anti-Asian sentiments of the electorate to ride back to power.

Mr. Howard has swept back to power for a historic third term. There has been some talk of his retiring but Mr. Howard has said that he will certainly be taking over as Prime Minister now.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Next     : Putin faces hard bargaining in U.S.