Canberra
Australians will go to the polls on Saturday following a six-week election campaign that has focused on pandemic-fueled inflation, climate change and fears of a Chinese military outpost being established less than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) off Australia’s shore.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition is seeking a rare fourth three-year term in the election.
He began the campaign in April by urging voters to stick with a government that delivered one of the lowest pandemic death tolls of any advanced economy rather than risk the opposition center-left Labor Party.
An early election late last year had been widely anticipated with Morrison expected to reap the political capital from his government’s success in containing the spread of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic.
But his nickname ScoMo was changed by critics to SloMo a year ago when Australia’s vaccine rollout fell months behind schedule.
Australia has recorded more than double the number of COVID-19 deaths so far this year than it did during the first two years of the pandemic. Around 8,000 people have died with COVID-19 among Australia’s population of 26 million. Only 2,239 died in 2020 and 2021. The more transmissible virus variants have tarnished the government’s pandemic record.
The government changed voting regulations on Friday to enable thousands of people who have recently been infected with COVID-19 to vote by phone.