Australian PM on Track to Win Re-Election: Poll
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his governing Labor Party are on track to win a second term in power in May's general election, according to a new poll on Sunday.
The Labor Party is likely to win 75 out of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament at the May 3 election, just short of the 76 required to form a majority government, the poll released by the Australian branch of the UK-based market research firm YouGov showed.
If neither Labor nor the opposition coalition --led by Peter Dutton-- win at least 76 seats it the election, both Albanese and Dutton will enter negotiations with minor parties and independents for their support to form a minority government, Xinhua reported.
The poll of 38,629 voters, which was published on the second day of the election campaign, suggested that the opposition coalition is most likely to win 60 seats, with minor parties and independents --known as the crossbench-- on track to win 15.
That result would leave the opposition coalition without a path to form a minority government, with Albanese needing the support of only one crossbench member to become the first leader of either major party to win consecutive elections since 2004.
The previous edition of the YouGov poll released in mid-February projected that the opposition coalition was on track to win 73 seats --up from the 53 it currently holds-- and Labor 66.
