MELBOURNE: Ending weeks of political uncertainty, Australia’s first woman Prime Minister Julia Gillard Tuesday staked claim to form a new government after two kingmaker independent MPs extended support to her Labor party, giving it a wafer-thin one-seat majority in the first hung Parliament in nearly 70 years.

After Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, the two rural independent lawmakers, said they would support her party, 48-year-old Gillard called on Governor-General Quentin Bryce in Yarralumla, a suburb of Canberra.

She formally advised her that Labor had the numbers to form a minority government, more than two weeks after the cliffhanger August 21 polls failed to produce a clear winner.

Labor now controls 76 seats in Parliament’s 150-member House of Representatives, with the opposition Coalition of Liberal party leader Tony Abbott having 74 seats.

Earlier in the day, Gillard, who assumed power 10 weeks ago in a party revolt, said in Canberra that it was likely she would be in a position early next week to swear in a new ministry and added that Labor would govern in the best interests of the Australian people.

“Labor is prepared to govern,” said the Prime Minister, who would be heading the first minority government since 1943.

“I believe the Australian people, given the closeness of this vote, want us to find more common ground in the national interest,” she said in her first remarks after snatching victory.