Opposition supporters left to rue three more years of a 'distrusted' government
Australia was a divided nation yesterday, with just over half the country rejoicing in Prime Minister John Howard's fourth consecutive election victory and the others gloomily contemplating another three years under a government they dislike and distrust.
Mr Howard's conservative Liberal/National coalition was elected with 52.5 per cent of the vote, while Labor attracted 47.5 per cent of support on the basis of the country's complicated preferential voting system.
The result means that in December, Mr Howard, 65, will become Australia's second-longest serving prime minister, surpassing the eight years and nine months Labor's Bob Hawke spent in office.
It was a stunning victory over the 43-year-old Labor Party leader Mark Latham. Not since the 1960s has an incumbent government increased its majority in two successive elections.
Victory did not come easily to the man who, after he was rejected by voters at the 1987 election, was described by a market research company as the Liberal Party's most unappealing leader ever.