Son of Palestinian refugees projected to win Calwell for Labor in most complex preference count in history

The Guardian

7 days ago

The son of Palestinian refugees has been projected to win the Melbourne seat of Calwell for Labor after the most complex preference count the Australian Electoral Commission has ever conducted.
The ABC's chief election analyst Antony Green and the independent election analyst Ben Raue called the seat for Basem Abdo on Monday afternoon, increasing Labor's majority to 94 seats.
Abdo, who replaced the long-serving Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou as the party's candidate, was in a field of 13 candidates, with several independent candidates eating into both major parties' margins to make it difficult to predict who would be the final two candidates.
Abdo won 30.6% of the primary vote, with the Liberal candidate Usman Ghani second on 15.6%.
Two independents sat close behind the Liberal on the primary vote, with the former Labor mayor turned independent Carly Moore banking 12.1% of primary votes and independent candidate Joseph Youhana taking 11.3%.
The preference flows were so tight that the Greens candidate Ravneet Kaur Garcha, who was even further behind with a primary vote of 8.3%, knocked out Youhana through preferences and took the fourth spot in the race.
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Garcha was then knocked out, with many preferences going to Abdo and Moore, which eliminated the Liberal candidate, making it impossible for Moore to beat Abdo through the final preference flows.
The AEC said on its website 'the distribution of preferences for the Division of Calwell is the most complex preference count the AEC has ever conducted'.
Calwell has been held by Labor since it was created in 1984. Vamvakinou held Calwell from 2001 and endorsed Abdo to run for the seat, with significant support from within Labor's socialist left faction.
Vamvakinou was one of Labor's most outspoken members on the war in Gaza, and said previously that recognising Palestinian statehood was 'unfinished business' for her party.
Abdo was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents – his father left a village in the occupied West Bank after the six-day war in 1967 – and his family sought refuge in Jordan during the Gulf war before migrating to Australia in 1991.
Calwell was a seat where the conflict in Gaza had a tangible impact. The community group Muslim Votes Matters named Calwell one of its 'focus' electorates, and the Muslim Vote endorsed an independent Muslim candidate. About a quarter of voters in Calwell are Muslim, according to the 2021 census.
The Muslim Votes Matters group also handed out their own how to vote cards across the electorate, which had an impact on preference flows.
The Muslim Votes Matters card endorsed the independent candidate Samim Moslih, but also preferenced Youhana ahead of Abdo and both ahead of Moore.
On Monday the AEC declared the first batch of senators for the state of South Australia.
The Labor senators Marielle Smith and Karen Grogan have returned to parliament, along with Liberals Alex Antic and Anne Ruston, and the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Labor also won the last spot, with 21-year-old Charlotte Walker.
On Tuesday, the AEC will announce the results for the Northern Territory and Tasmania, where Jacqui Lambie has been facing off against the One Nation candidate Lee Hanson, Pauline Hanson's daughter.
The seat of Goldstein will be partially recounted by the AEC after the independent MP Zoe Daniel called for a full recount.
Daniel was behind the Liberal candidate and former MP Tim Wilson by 260 votes at the end of the full distribution of preferences.
The partial recount will examine all first preference ballot papers for Daniel and Wilson, as well as all informal ballot papers, but won't repeat a complete distribution of preferences, as the AEC said it was confident in that part of the process.
The recount will begin on Wednesday and is estimated to take up to four days.
A recount has already begun in the Sydney seat of Bradfield, where at the end of the full distribution the Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian was just eight votes ahead of the independent candidate Nicolette Boele.
The AEC expects the full recount to take up to two weeks.
In the event of a tie, the AEC would petition the court of disputed returns within the high court to void the result and trigger a byelection. A candidate could also petition the court, after the recount, to void the result.