CANBERRA, May 14 (Xinhua) -- With four days to go until Australia's general election, the incumbent prime minister are seeking the support of independent candidates in the case of a hung Parliament.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the leader of the governing Liberal- National party coalition (LNP), on Tuesday confirmed that he has asked independent candidates if they will support him if the election is close.
According to opinion polls, the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) will win power on Saturday with a slim majority of seats in the lower house of the Australian Parliament, the House of Representatives.
However, if neither the ALP nor the LNP wins a majority of the 151 seats, they can form a minority government with the support of independents and smaller parties, as Labor did to form a government in 2010.
"Those who are running as independents in their electorates would need to answer," Morrison told reporters on Tuesday.
"This is going to be a very close election."
As a result of by-election defeats, the LNP currently holds only 74 out of 151 seats in the House of Representatives.
Mathias Cormann, the minister for finance, said on Tuesday that Australians deserve to known how independent candidates intend to vote in Parliament.
With both parties having announced their major policies if they win on Saturday, the leaders will use the last week of the election campaign to target marginal seats where the election will be won and lost.
Morrison spent Tuesday morning defending his plan to lower the required deposit for first home buyers to five percent, saying that it would stabilize Australia's fledgling property market.
ALP leader Bill Shorten on Tuesday promised that he would take action on increasing the minimum wage if he wins the election.
"If Australians decide against six more years of cuts and chaos from a Morrison government and vote for change, a Shorten Labor government will not delay the pay rise that Australian workers deserve," Shorten and ALP employment spokesperson Brendan O'Connor said in a statement.
