A former chicken farmer who may hold the balance of power in the Northern Territory Parliament criticised the Labor Government's planning policies and said the Chief Minister, Paul Henderson, blundered by running a negative election campaign.
"People don't want politicians in their faces," Gerry Wood said after Saturday's election returned a shock result for Labor.
"You don't need an ugly face on posters to win … You just need a nice little friendly chicken. I think voters see that as not aggressive."
Mr Wood campaigned with a chicken as his logo in Nelson, a rural electorate south of Darwin.
He adopted the feathery theme after a political opponent attacked him for being a "failed chook farmer".
Mr Wood, who entered Parliament in 2001, reported seeing a UFO over Howard Springs, his home town, on July 16.
"It was a dark grey object and it was flying parallel to the ground," he said.
If any political analysts or spinners in Darwin think Mr Wood does not know what he is talking about they should look at the result.
He received 80pc of the vote, the biggest winning margin of any candidate.
Mr Wood said he would take several days to decide who he would support if postal and absentee votes to be counted this week resulted in him holding the balance of power in the 25-seat Parliament.
"I would think about what the Government has done, look at its record," he said.
"I would also look at what the Opposition is promising, what talent has been elected."
Mr Wood said Labor had "duped" voters by offering a site in Darwin Harbour for a $12 billion Japanese-owned gas plant without conducting an environmental impact study.
Officials will today begin counting thousands of absentee and postal votes that will decide the fate of Labor, which registered an average swing against it of 8.3pc.
Mr Henderson had been expected to win the poll comfortably, but by the close of counting on Saturday, Labor was ahead in 13 seats, the Country Liberal Party in 11, and Mr Wood was the only independent.
The result will probably hinge on Fannie Bay, the Darwin seat that was held for 13 years by former chief minister Clare Martin, who retired from politics. Labor is ahead in the seat by 57 votes.
In three other Darwin seats, CLP candidates are ahead by margins of 177 votes or less.
Among the three Labor ministers who lost their seats was Len Kiely, who took an 18.1pc swing against him.
His campaign had been dogged by an admission that he had sexually abused a female security guard while drunk.
Several senior Labor figures in Darwin are furious with Mr Henderson for calling the election a year early and failing to take notice of widespread dissent in Alice Springs, where the CLP won with 72.6pc of the vote.
They also believe he should not have run such a negative campaign against the Opposition Leader, Terry Mills, who before Saturday was one of only four Opposition MPs in Parliament.
But senior ministers, including Chris Burns, yesterday pledged their support for Mr Henderson, who told journalists he would "listen to what Territorians have said and act on those concerns".
Of 23 contested seats, the CLP won 48.8pc of the vote and Labor 48.1pc, after preferences.
The CLP did not contest two outback electorates held by popular indigenous MPs.
The NT Electoral Commission dismissed speculation of a low voter turn-out, saying this would not be known until postal and absentee votes had been counted.
The result cemented Mr Mills as the CLP leader after pre-election speculation that he would lose the job after the election.
If Labor is returned, the CLP will form a strong parliamentary Opposition, something that has been missing in the Territory since 2005.
Despite last year's federal intervention in 73 of the Territory's remote indigenous communities, indigenous matters were rarely mentioned during the campaign.
After the result was known on Saturday night, Mr Henderson promised his Government would do more to help disadvantaged Aborigines.
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