Friday, 04 June 2004

October surprise? Australia may follow Spain's lead and depart the "Coalition of the Willing" later this year, depending on the timing and outcome of Aussie elections. For the benefit of my American readers, here's a quick summary of the Australian political scene. (My perspective on things Australian is not necessarily the most accurate, of course, but I can at least describe what I know of the two countries.)

Australia's political system is similar to the United Kingdom's: Political parties elect their leaders, and the Prime Minister is the leader of the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats in the lower house of Parliament. Oz's two major parties are the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party; there are also several smaller parties, which — unlike their American counterparts — are large enough to deny any one party a majority.

The so-called "Liberals" are Oz's social conservatives; on the American political scale, they'd measure somewhere on the respectable side of the GOP. (The "respectable side" being people like John McCain and Richard Lugar, as opposed to the scorched-earth fanatics.) The Liberals been in power since 1996, and their leader John Howard is currently Prime Minister.

As the name implies, Labor is the party of trade unions and stronger social safety nets; at one point they were genuine socialists, but the party platform has mellowed over the decades. Their current leader is Mark Latham, who recently described George W. Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory" and has pledged to have Australia's Iraq contingent home by Christmas.

These two parties have about 65-70 seats each in Australia's House of Representatives, which has a total membership of 150. (They also have about 30 Senators each, out of a total of 76, but it's the House that chooses the Prime Minister.) The rural-conservative National Party holds another 13 seats, and partners with the Liberals for a voting majority; the Green Party has a single House seat, and the remaining three seats are held by independents.

Labor can (probably) count on the Greens to support them if the need arises, and one of the three independents might back a Labor government — which means the Labor Party needs to gain at least eleven seats in the upcoming election to oust John Howard and make Latham the Prime Minister.

At the moment Latham is leading Howard in the polls, in no small part because of the situation on the ground in Iraq… but, because of the way the Australian system works, Aussies don't vote directly for Latham or Howard. Australia's next Prime Minister will be determined by the outcome of 150 separate local elections, not by a direct contest: It's as though Dennis Hastert were President, by virtue of being House Majority Leader, and Nancy Pelosi was the challenger.

I don't know enough about local Australian politics to say whether Labor has a chance of picking up twelve or more seats, but I suspect the race is going to be tighter than the Liberals would have liked. John Howard is answering some tough questions this month about the Red Cross reports out of Abu Ghraib, when Australia learned that their coalition partner was torturing Iraqis, whether the Australians being held at Guantanamo Bay are also being tortured, and so forth. He's also not gaining any points from the current state of affais in Iraq.

The timing of Australia's elections is tricky, though: It's entirely up to Howard, who can call them (on one month's notice) at any time between now and April 2005. The PM is widely expected to call the election in October or November, and will likely try to time it for his own maximum advantage; if he holds the election in October, the outcome — and the implications for Australia's 800 troops in Iraq — will be known before Americans go to the polls.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 3:07 pm. comments.