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Howard faces defeat on home ground

— PHOTO: AP

PAIN OF DEFEAT: Australian Prime Minister John Howard embraces his wife, Janette, after his concession speech in Canberra on Saturday.

SYDNEY: Australia’s outgoing Prime Minister John Howard lost his grip on power in national elections on Saturday, and faced a still greater humiliation — losing his place in Parliament altogether.

Mr. Howard, Australia’s second-longest serving Prime Minister and a leading figure in Australian politics for more than three decades, conceded that he was “very likely” to lose his home district of Bennelong.

With more than 75 per cent of votes counted in Bennelong, Mr. Howard trailed his rival Maxine McKew by a narrow margin. A handful of absentee ballots and preferences from minor parties will decide his fate as the district’s parliamentary representative, which was not immediately known on Saturday night.

However, minutes after conceding defeat, Mr. Howard told supporters in Sydney it appeared “very likely to be the case that I will no longer be the member for Bennelong.” “But whatever ultimately is the situation, I do want to thank the people of Bennelong who have done me the honour of electing me to represent them in the national Parliament for some 33 years,” Mr. Howard said.

A loss in Bennelong would mark a mortifying end to Mr. Howard’s political career, making him only the second Prime Minister to be dumped from the legislature. The first was the largely forgotten Stanley Bruce, in 1929. Ms. McKew, a charismatic former television journalist recruited to oust the 68-year leader, declined to claim victory as the results rolled in, saying the count was still “on a knife edge.”

“The result is not clear, but what a wonderful, wonderful campaign this has been,” she told throngs of cheering supporters at her campaign headquarters. “Bennelong will never, ever be taken for granted again.”

Formerly a safe area for Mr. Howard’s Liberal Party, Bennelong has seen its loyalties gradually shift over the years as immigration and redistricting have changed the face of the electorate there. Once a typical cross-section of Anglo-Saxon Australia, Bennelong is now a multicultural mix of Presbyterian churches, Indian supermarkets and Vietnamese noodle houses.

Immigrants in Australia are generally Labour voters. Before the election, Mr. Howard was the only Liberal Party member to hold a district with that level of ethnic diversity. — AP

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