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Support for Howard falls as talks end

Police officers arrest a protester following a rally against US President George W. Bush, the Iraq war and the APEC summit in Sydney on Saturday. Leaders gathered in Sydney under the tightest security cloak in Australian history. PHOTO: AFP

As Australian Prime Minister John Howard waved farewell to a parade of world leaders after a summit yesterday, he could have been bidding goodbye to his own role on the international stage.

After more than 11 years in power, the conservative leader is heading towards an imminent election with every poll predicting he will be ousted in a landslide by the center-left Labor Party.

Howard had banked on a bounce from hosting leaders such as US President George W. Bush, a close ally who gave him an effusive public endorsement, at the APEC summit in Sydney.

But the plan may have backfired in a country where most people oppose the Iraq war and in a city of 4 million people whose lives have been disrupted by an unprecedented security lockdown.

While Howard rubbed shoulders with the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) had its drawbacks, Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd upstaged Howard by chatting with Hu in fluent Mandarin.

The charmed Chinese president congratulated Rudd on his language skills, which were also hailed by Chinese journalists, who said he would be the first Western leader to speak good Mandarin.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was forced yesterday to deny media reports that views were firming within an increasingly worried Cabinet that Howard, 68, should quit the leadership of the ruling Liberal Party.

"That is definitely not the case," he said in response to suggestions that Howard's ambitious Treasurer Peter Costello could be called in to lead the struggling party into the elections.

"There is enormous affection for and respect for John Howard," Downer said. "He is determined to lead the government not just into the election, but successfully through the election."

But if anybody got a summit lift it was probably Rudd, 49, the fresh-faced former diplomat in Beijing, who also met with Bush and refused to budge on a Labor pledge to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq.

"I think John Howard will be concerned about being upstaged by Kevin Rudd," said Damien Kingsbury of Deakin University.

Rudd's use of Mandarin showed he was "not only competent in the international arena, but [showed] a degree of sophistication that Howard does not have in that cross-cultural sense," Kingsbury said.

"I think it has compromised the event in terms of Howard using it to give himself a leg up in the coming elections," he said.

Even so, Howard is expected to call elections soon after the summit. They must be held by the end of the year and pundits say that with each opinion poll looking worse than the last, there is little point in Howard holding on until the bitter end.

The latest news poll, published last week, gave Rudd's Labor 59 percent of the vote to 41 percent for Howard's Liberals -- figures that would translate into a landslide at the election with Labor taking 119 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

Even a conservative commentator who believes Howard benefited from the summit suggested he take the opportunity to step down in favor of the fast-rising Costello.

"Time is of the essence here," Glenn Milne wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. "Howard's supporters recognize that the conclusion of APEC represents the only natural opportunity for Howard to depart with dignity before the election."

But Howard has given no sign that he is thinking of quitting and is expected to call the election later this week or early next week.

He needs to give a minimum of 33 days warning before the election, meaning that a vote could be held as early as the middle of next month.
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