(VOVworld) - Voting booths opened at 8 a.m. local time on Saturday in the eastern states of Australia for voters to decide which party will lead the country in the next three years.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (R) casts vote at a polling station in Brisbane, Australia, Sept. 7, 2013. Australia held parliamentary election on Saturday. (Xinhua/Bai Xue)

Figures from the Australian Election Commission (AEC) showed that some 14.7 million Australian voters will go to nearly 8,000 polling stations across the country to cast their ballots. Since August 20^th, about 3 million Australians living and working abroad have begun to cast their votes.

Despite dozens of parties have participated in this election, in fact, it’s a race between the ruling Labor Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the opposition Liberal-National Coalition led by Tony Abbott.
The latest poll put the Coalition on track to win 54 percent of the vote to Labor's 46 percent. The latest forecasts show that the Labor Party is likely to loose up to 32 seats in the Lower House while the conservative side may win a majority of 90 seats. According to the Australian law, any party which keeps more than half of the votes will be allowed to set up a government and the party’s leader will become the country’s Prime Minister.