UK election

Britons went to the polls on Thursday in what is forecast to be the closest election since 1992.

Leaders from the three main parties made their final pledges to the electorate on Wednesday, touring the country in an attempt to tip the scales in their favor.

With up to two million voters "undecided," according to researchers, and with the opinion polls still close, this final push could prove decisive.

The Conservative opposition party has the lead in many opinion polls, yet it's unclear whether this advantage will convert into a parliamentary majority.

Party leader David Cameron is trying to ensure his party wins battleground seats against the ruling Labour party, and concentrated his final overnight campaign on constituencies to the north of England that have voted Labour in recent years.

"I don't want to take anything for granted," Cameron said on a major breakfast television show. "It's a very important election, it's a close election and I'm fighting for every vote right down to the wire."

The Conservatives are promising to cut waste in the public sector, and claim these savings will enable them to avoid tax increases in an election dominated by the balance between promoting economic recovery and reducing national debt.

Britain has an annual budget deficit of roughly 11 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and a total national debt of roughly 80 percent of GDP. It has also been relatively sluggish compared to its European neighbors in emerging from the recession.

Victory from the jaws of defeat

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is considered an outsider for re-election, however his chances are somewhat better than they appear at first glance.

Labour is trailing the Conservatives by roughly six percent in the opinion polls, but most analysts expect that proportion of the vote to translate into a very similar number of seats in parliament. A slight swing in Labour's favor on election day could lead to the ruling party again securing half of the parliamentary seats, despite winning fewer votes than the Tories.

Brown also focused his final campaigning on the north of England, telling a crowd in Bradford on Wednesday that a Conservative government would plunge Britain back into recession.

"[Thursday] is the day for us to stand firm for what everybody knows to be true," Brown said. "I am determined and I am resolute and I am fighting not for me, but for Britain's future."

Third party no more?

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, abandoning his campaign bus for a faster plane in the final days, made his final pitches to voters in the southeast and close to his home constituency of Sheffield in the north.

Clegg has catapulted Britain's traditional also-ran into the national spotlight, not least because of strong performances in the televised leaders' debates - a first for the 2010 election in Britain.

"This time is our chance," Clegg told supporters, after his party jumped almost 10 points in the opinion polls since the election was announced.

"It is a choice between the politics of the past and the new, different politics of the future," said Clegg, whose main policies include a taxation overhaul, closer cooperation with the EU and a change to Britain's first-past-the-post representation system.

The Liberal Democrats are level with Labour according to most opinion polls. However, the party is likely to win only about one third as many seats as its two rivals - as it is likely to come second in many of the 650 constituencies around the country.

Still, the party's surge in popularity is likely to take enough seats away from Labour and the Conservatives to prevent any party from getting a clear 50 percent majority in parliament. This has not happened since the 1970s, and would lead either to a coalition or to a minority government after decades of single-party rule.

msh/AFP/AP/Reuters
Editor: Holly Fox