President Bush wasn’t on the ballot in Australia’s elections, but one of his closest international allies was, and the rebuke couldn’t have been more emphatic:
SYDNEY, Australia — Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia’s combat troops from Iraq.
Labor Party head Kevin Rudd’s pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush’s staunchest allies.
Rudd has named global warming as his top priority, and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it.
Rudd said he would withdraw Australia’s 550 combat troops from Iraq, leaving twice that number in mostly security roles. Howard had said all the troops will stay as long as needed.
Official figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor far in front after more than 70 percent of the ballots had been counted _ with 53 percent of the vote compared to 46.7 percent for Howard’s coalition.
Using those figures, an Australian Broadcasting Corp. analysis showed that Labor would get at least 81 places in the 150-seat lower house of Parliament _ a clear majority.
Rudd is expected to take office next week.
President Bush congratulated Rudd and the Australia Labor Party and also sent best wishes to Howard, without commenting on Rudd’s intention to withdraw combat troops from Iraq.
“The United States and Australia have long been strong partners and allies and the president looks forward to working with this new government to continue our historic relationship,” said Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman. “During his time as prime minister, Mr. Howard served the people of Australia well by pursuing policies that led to strong economic growth and a commitment to keeping Australians safe by fighting extremists and their ideology around the world.”
The election was an embarrassing end to the career of Howard, Australia’s second-longest serving leader.
Slowly but surely, the coalition of the willing is coming to an end.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
In addition to losing his position as Prime Minster, John Howard lost his seat in parliament to Labor Party candidate Maxine McKew. Howard became only the second Australian Prime Minster in history to lose his seat in parliment.
Should the Republicans in the US be worried about next years elections? You bet they should be. At least those who still profess and show loyally to President George Bush.
As you say with Tony Blair already voted out of office in the UK and now Howard out looking for another job “Slowly but surely, the coalition of the willing is coming to an end.”
Bush must be getting a little lonely by now. I don’t think that he and Rudd are going to get along so well.