Australian elections today: Howard faces tough challenge

Four-term Prime Minister John Howard squares off against his most popular challenger ever at elections Saturday in Australia, with polls signaling a big swing toward the opposition but the outcome to be decided in a few key districts.

If Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd defeats Howard, it will bring a humiliating end to the career of Australia’s second-longest-serving prime minister and usher in big changes in the country’s approach to global warming and its troop deployment in Iraq.

Rudd has held a commanding lead over Howard for almost a year in trusted opinion polls, and the numbers have barely budged during six weeks of sometimes frantic campaigning that formally ends Friday. A series of missteps by Howard’s conservative Liberal party during the campaign has cemented Labor as the favorite.

But the result will come down to a handful of districts where the race is tightest. Labor must win 16 more seats in the 150-member lower house of Parliament than it did at the last election in 2004 to gain a majority and form government.

On Friday, both leaders said they expect the result to be close.

Economics has been a central theme of the campaign, with candidates debating who can best manage an unprecedented boom being fueled by China’s and India’s hunger for the coal and other minerals dug from of the Outback without pushing up inflation and mortgage interest rates. But a strong underlying factor is the prospect of a generational change.

“This country is crying out for new leadership,” said Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat who speaks fluent Mandarin and has promised an “education revolution” and high-speed Internet connections for all Australians.

Howard, 68, has staked his future on the past, by claiming credit for 17 unbroken years of economic growth and warning that Rudd’s team cannot be trusted to maintain prosperous times.

“If you believe that Australia is heading in the right direction, don’t put that at risk by changing the government,” Howard said in an appeal to voters. Three of four newspapers in Australia’s three largest cities backed Labor, while the two national dailies were split. Even Howard’s favorite, Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph, abandoned him.

“Mr. Howard has reached his used-by date,” the Telegraph said in its editorial.

More than 13.5 million of Australia’s roughly 21 million population are required to cast ballots on Saturday, with the results likely to be known late that day or early Sunday.

Climate change - an issue sharpened in voters’ minds by water shortages caused by Australia’s worst-ever drought - is at the forefront of an Australian election for the first time.

Howard first came to power in 1996 and his three subsequent election victories have made him one of Australia’s most successful leaders.

Sydney, Friday, AP