And what, exactly, has it meant for the country?

Gabriela Perdomo - With an election looming just around the corner of Australia’s winter, Aussies have started to ask the obligatory questions. Will this spring see the end of John Howard’s 11 years in the prime minister’s office? Will he retire now that he has reached the age of 68? Or, could the opposition’s Kevin Rudd—more popular than him—possibly win the ballot?

A polarized country wonders. Since December last year, when Rudd became leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), a large group of Howard-tired voters began to follow his ideas. The prime minister’s leadership, which so far had remained untouched due to the absence of a better option, soon began to look weak next to the figure of a feisty opposition leader 18 years younger than Howard.

With little more than a sound economy to boast about, Rudd’s outspoken criticism of Howard’s right-leaning policies on everything—security, nuclear energy, industrial relations, immigration—have made a dent on the prime minister’s political clout. An election to the House of Representatives is due before 2007 ends, and this could not be a worse time for Howard’s Coalition of Liberals and Nationals. This year has been a difficult one.

Domestically, Howard has damaged his already strained relationship with Australia’s marginalized Aborigines by passing controversial laws granting government security forces access into aboriginal reserves in order to combat a high incidence of child abuse and alcoholism. Aboriginal leaders have called the measures "genocidal."

On the immigration front, an equally sensitive issue in Australia, Howard was also lambasted last month for introducing a new "values test" that new immigrants will have to take to profess their allegiance to the country’s "Judeo-Christian ethics." In a country with a large Muslim community, this was probably not the best public relations move in an election year.

Internationally, Howard has also lost momentum. Formerly a global warming skeptic, the prime minister had to change course and tried to reshape his figure as a global force against pollution, as Rudd labeled himself as an environmentally-friendly politician. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sidney, Howard placed combating global warming at the top of the agenda—maybe because other international topics, such as Australia’s participation in Iraq and Afghanistan, are even more threatening to his government’s foreign policy.

To his credit, Howard has been coherent with his initial support for the war in Iraq since the United States led the coalition effort to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. He has also been consistent with the country’s participation in the original battleground of the war on terror: Afghanistan. Howard’s loyalty to the cause, however, has cost him a great deal politically, probably more than it has cost any other supporter of the war.

British prime minister Tony Blair and Spanish president José María Aznar—the other two prominent Western leaders who supported the U.S. at the time the war began—are already out of office; and U.S. president George W. Bush will leave the White House in January 2009. If he were to win this election, Howard is set to stand alone as a leader of an industrialized country who still believes going into Iraq was right—something Australians might not find as glamorous a label for their prime minister.

Many signs seem to suggest this might well be the end of the Howard era. This year, every company conducting polls in Australia has placed the ALP ahead of the governing Coalition. Nine months into the year, the numbers are not to be undermined. Furthermore, Howard’s bid for a fifth consecutive term appears threatened from its root. Recent polls by Galaxy show Howard could lose his constituency in Bennelong to the ALP’s candidate, Maxine McKew, a famous broadcaster-turned politician. The blow would be humiliating. The prime minister has held this seat since 1974.

But the campaign has not really started yet. In Australia, as long as there is no fixed election date, voting intention polls will keep revealing only what people loosely think of one or the other camp, not necessarily who they will vote for. The Howard era—marked by a stable and strong economy, a growing tourism industry, and a brilliant campaign that has made of Australia a top notch destination for international students—might still have a chance to live on. As for retirement, Howard has already said he will only leave when he is not "100 per cent fit" to do the job. Rudd, and Australian voters, might alter this forecast.

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