The New York Times
SYDNEY, Australia — Australia’s Parliament faced the rare prospect of a stalemate on Saturday after voters apparently failed to deliver a clear majority to either the governing center-left Labor Party or a conservative opposition coalition in the tightest race seen here in decades.
With about three-quarters of the votes counted late Saturday, lawmakers from both major parties conceded they were unlikely to get enough votes to form a majority in the House of Representatives, where the government is formed.
Disgruntled with the two major opponents, voters turned in record numbers to independent candidates and the Greens party, which captured its first seat in the House and a potentially tie-breaking bloc of votes in the Senate.
Support for the Greens was seen as a repudiation by some traditional Labor voters of that party’s decision to shelve its proposed cap-and-trade energy plan until after 2012.
On Sunday morning, Labor and the conservative coalition of the Liberal and National Parties, led by Representative Tony Abbott, both had 71 seats in the 150-member House, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters Sunday that she had started negotiating with independent lawmakers. ''It is clear that neither party has earned the right to government in its own right,'' she said and the Associated Press reported. ''It's my intention to negotiate in good faith an effective agreement to form government.''
The close results, and the unusually strong showing by the independents and the Greens, raised the possibility that neither party would be able to secure the 76 seats needed to form a majority government in its own right, an event not seen in Australia for 70 years.
If the two parties remained locked in a dead heat, as many analysts and senior lawmakers predict, the winner of Saturday’s election would be determined through a process of intense negotiation by both Labor and the conservative coalition with the Greens and at least three independent House members, who come from mainly conservative, rural constituencies.
“There are anxious days ahead,” Ms. Gillard told a subdued gathering of Labor Party supporters in her home city of Melbourne.
“Obviously this is too close to call,” she said. “There are many seats where the result is undecided and where it will take a number of days of counting to determine the result.”
Mr. Abbott said Labor’s inability to gain a clear majority after sweeping to power in 2007 with a 13-seat advantage meant that the government had “lost its legitimacy.” He said he would start immediate talks with the three independents.
“This is no time for premature triumphalism,” Mr. Abbott said. But he added, “There should be an appreciation that this has been a great night for the Australian people.”
Ms. Gillard, 48, a former lawyer and labor union advocate, became the country’s first female prime minister in June after she ousted the once popular Kevin Rudd in a sudden mutiny that shocked the country. Mr. Rudd’s approval ratings had been declining for some weeks, and many Labor officials were convinced that the election could not be won with him as party leader.
But Ms. Gillard’s campaign has been marred by internal party bickering and a lingering sense of resentment among some voters — particularly in Mr. Rudd’s home state of Queensland — over the former leader’s abrupt removal.
Mr. Abbott, a 52-year-old Rhodes scholar who trained briefly for the priesthood before turning to politics, has sought to capitalize on that sentiment, telling supporters that Saturday’s vote was a “referendum on the political execution of a prime minister.”
The cliffhanger results Saturday are a stunning reversal for Labor, which, for much of Mr. Rudd’s tenure, enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings of any Australian government.
Yet despite claiming credit for keeping Australia out of recession during the global financial crisis, Labor has come under sustained criticism in recent months for its decision not to press forward with its cap-and-trade plan for carbon emissions and a battle with the powerful resources sector over a proposed tax on iron ore, coal and other commodities that form the backbone of Australia’s resource-driven economy.
If Labor were to lose, it would be the first government since 1931 to be turned out of power after just one three-year term.
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