After one of the most passionately contested elections in decades, the Conservative Party was headed toward big, though not necessarily decisive, gains in Britain early on Friday.
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Incomplete results from 650 House of Commons constituencies across the country pointed to a strong performance on Thursday by the opposition party, led by David Cameron, though the size of the increase in the Conservative vote raised doubts about the party’s ability to win the majority needed to be sure of regaining power after 13 years of Labour control.
What seemed sure was that the Conservatives would win the largest number of seats, probably dozens more than Labour, with the third party, the left-of-center Liberal Democrats, trailing in third. But without a majority, Mr. Cameron — and the country — could be heading for days of agonizing uncertainty as the two main parties set about trying to outmaneuver each other for power.
Mr. Cameron was restrained as he won re-election in his Oxfordshire constituency. He said his party appeared likely to win more seats than in any election in 80 years, but avoided making claim to the keys at 10 Downing Street, saying, “What will guide me will be what’s in the national interest.”
If that hinted at a Conservative bid to govern with the Liberal Democrats, he was unsparing in his remarks about Labour. “I believe it’s already clear that Labour has lost its mandate to govern,” he said.
But with the national picture unclear, a long line of powerful Labour figures appeared on television to set out what appeared to be an orchestrated rationale for hanging on to power, even if the party finished far behind the Conservatives in the numbers of Commons seats.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, although winning re-election in his Edinburgh-area constituency with an increased majority, appeared subdued as he thanked voters. His remarks appeared deliberately ambiguous, leaving open the possibility that he would fight to stay on as prime minister, or step aside to make way for another Labour leader more acceptable to the Liberal Democrats. “The outcome is not yet known,” he said, “but it is my duty to play my part to form a strong and principled government.”
Partial results announced showed a sharp swing from Labour to the Conservatives in seats in northern England that had been Labour strongholds for decades, with voter shifts from one party to the other that ranged from 5 to 11 percent. And early returns from central and southern England suggested a similarly strong shift to the Conservatives — in some cases as high as 10 percent — that raised, at least briefly, Conservative hopes of gaining a clear majority.
Pollsters had said that a nationwide swing of 7 percent in the Conservatives’ favor might be enough for a slim majority. Across many parts of England, the party appeared to have approached or even surpassed that standard, and it made some surprising gains in Wales.
But the overall picture was spotty, with the Conservatives not posting the consistent gains across the country that they needed, and with the Labour vote holding up far better in some areas, especially Scotland, than in others. Notably, the Conservatives failed to win several seats that were high on a list of 116 that they identified as the most promising targets.
But perhaps the biggest surprise was the lackluster performance of the Liberal Democrats, who showed no sign of the major breakthrough that many had expected after the show-stealing performance of the party’s leader, Nick Clegg, in three televised election debates that were the centerpiece of the campaign. Partial returns suggested that they might win only about as many seats, 62, as they took in the last election, in 2005.
Peter Mandelson, the Labour Party’s chief strategist and an influential cabinet colleague of Mr. Brown’s, said that Labour had “the right to seek
That pointed to a bid by Labour to form a coalition, or some other arrangement, with the Liberal Democrats. But the unimpressive performance of the Liberal Democrats stood as a potential obstacle to that plan, since a Liberal Democrat bloc of about 60 seats would be likely to leave Labour and the Liberal Democrats together with barely as many seats as the Conservatives.
In what appeared to be an opening bid for the Liberal Democrats’ support, Mr. Mandelson said that a fairer voting system should replace the existing one that resulted in smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats generally winning far fewer seats, proportionally, than their popular vote share. Mr. Clegg has said that a shift to another voting system fairer to small parties will be a non-negotiable demand in post-election discussions with Labour and the Conservatives.
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