Australia faces a strong possibility of a hung parliament after neither of the top parties won enough seats to form a government, election results showed today.

With 77 percent of votes counted, the ruling Liberal coalition led by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was neck-and-neck with Labor, led by opposition leader Bill Shorten.

Each had secured 67 seats, nine short of the majority needed in the 150-seat lower house.

Eleven seats were still too close to call. The Greens had won one, while four seats were taken by independent candidates.

More than 10 million voters cast their votes yesterday to choose representatives for both houses of parliament.

Labor was leading in six of the 11 seats still in play. But analysts said the trend could easily be reversed, because absentee ballots and mail-in votes yet to be counted have traditionally favoured the Liberals.

Projections showed the most Turnbull could hope for was 74 seats, which would force him to cut a deal with independents and minor parties to stay in power.

Final results are not expected until later this week.

Today and tomorrow, the commission will sort out more than a million postal and absentee votes, and begin the official count from Tuesday.

Postal votes received within the 13 days of the election are to be included in the count, which can stretch out the process.

Turnbull’s coalition saw erosion of support from the 90 seats it won in the 2013 election.

Early today, he told the party faithful that he was confident about forming “a coalition majority government”.

“We are the only parties that have the ability or the possibility of doing that,” Turnbull said in Sydney, adding the Labor “does not have the capacity to form a stable majority government”.

But he also conceded the race was “very, very close,” and acknowledged that the “final vote count will not be known for a few more days”.

A hung parliament remained a possibility, attorney-general George Brandis said.

Labor’s Shorten told supporters that Turnbull’s government had lost a clear mandate to govern.

“One thing is for sure, the Labor party is back,” he said, but did not claim to have enough votes to form a government.

Australia’s politics has seen years of turmoil characterised by internal political feuds, with the prime minister changed five times since 2010.

Turnbull came to power last year after ousting Tony Abbott in a Liberal Party coup.

Shorten took the helm at Labor after playing key roles in two leadership coups - the overthrowing of Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard in 2010, and the ousting of Gillard for Rudd again in 2013.

Rudd was soundly defeated by Abbott in 2013, after which Shorten took over the party.

- dpa