(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s center-right Country Liberal Party took control of parliament in the Northern Territory with a majority government, ending eight years of Labor rule.
With about 60% of the vote counted after polls closed on Saturday, the CLP had won 15 of the 25 seats in the territory’s parliament, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. While final numbers will be confirmed in coming days, the result means the party’s leader, Lia Finocchiaro, will become the territory’s chief minister.
The Labor party went into the election holding 14 seats and now holds four, with expectations that it may win one more, according to the ABC.
The Northern Territory, which is rich in natural gas, is twice the size of Texas and is home to about 250,000 people.
At the federal level, Australia’s center-left Labor government is facing a tight race with the opposition Liberal-National coalition ahead of an election due by May. There has been speculation the prime minister could go to the polls sooner than that if there is an uptick in the economic outlook, though some experts say cost pressures are dissipating too slowly for an early election move.
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