Australian Prime Minister John Howard faced down renewed leadership tensions on Monday after sparking a row with ambitious deputy Peter Costello, who called for an orderly changing of the guard. Political analysts in Australia said the leadership row threatened to destabilise the conservative government's fourth term in power. Howard, Australia's second-longest serving prime minister, angered Costello, the Treasurer, with weekend comments that he was ready to lead the country into the next election, due in 2007.
Costello said he had urged Howard to seek "an orderly transition" for the government's top job.
"It is a view that I put to the PM today, that is my view and I have been very open and frank about that," he told reporters on Monday after meeting with Howard.
Analysts said Costello, Howard's heir apparent for 10 years, does not yet have the numbers in the party and would have to mount a drawn out and divisive campaign to defeat Howard.
"It looks as though Howard is more interested in self-aggrandisement, and that is not good for party unity," said Michael McKinley, political analyst at the Australian National University.
He said Costello's supporters within the party would lead a campaign to gradually win more support for him.
The row has raised memories of a bitter battle in 1991 that consumed the then Labour Party government when Treasurer Paul Keating challenged Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
Howard was also involved in a decade of Liberal Party infighting in the 1980s and early 1990s with rival Andrew Peacock, a fight which kept his party out of office for 13 years.
Howard played down the row, saying he still expected Costello to one day take over as party leader.
Howard, who last October won his fourth straight election as prime minister with an increased majority, said he had not changed his position on retirement and would remain leader as long as his party wanted him. "I haven't run out of puff," Howard told commercial radio.
It is the second major setback for Costello's hopes of a smooth rise to the leadership, which were dashed two years ago when Howard reversed plans to consider retirement in the lead-up to his 64th birthday.
Analysts said most conservative MPs still believed Howard offered the best chance of an election victory in 2007 rather than Costello, who is due to present his 10th federal budget next week.
Howard said he would know when it was time to step down and the party did not want a change at this time.
"The mood of the Liberal Party at the moment is they don't want to talk about leadership," he told local radio.
"The mood of the Liberal Party is that the prime minister has just led the government back to a record fourth term. We have increased our majority. We have got the control of the Senate."
McKinley said Costello would need 18 months as prime minister to establish himself before facing an election, meaning the Liberal Party would need to decide on its leader by mid 2006.
"There are people within the party who realise the longer Howard stays, the more difficult it will be for his successor," he said.
Opposition leader Kim Beazley, twice defeated by Howard in elections, called on one of the two men to resign.
"There is a poisonous relationship between Howard and Costello that borders on hatred," he said.
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