Teal candidate Nicolette Boele has been declared the provisional winner in the Sydney seat of Bradfield by the slimmest of margins as counting finalised.

By 4pm Monday (AEST), Boele was ahead of her Liberal opponent Gisele Kapterian by 40 votes – with just two postal ballots still to be counted.

ABC chief elections analyst Antony Green said a further 209 pre-poll declaration votes added an extra 21 votes to Boele’s lead.

Bradfield has emerged as one of the tightest contests of the federal election, with a recount certain in the former safe Liberal electorate.

Because the result has been decided by fewer than 100 votes, the Australian Electoral Commission will conduct an automatic recount.

The state of the count in Bradfield on Monday afternoon. Image: AEC

Last week, some media outlets declared Kapterian had won the seat. She was in the Liberal party room meeting last Tuesday to vote for a leader.

But a large number of postal votes in favour of Boele renewed doubts about the outcome.

Boele had slowly narrowed the gap on Kapterian during the past week of counting.

Kapterian slightly increased her margin to 50 votes earlier on Monday, but a batch of 181 postal votes counted later put Boele in the lead.

The 2025 federal election was the second time Boele had contested the seat after she narrowly lost to Liberal Paul Fletcher in 2022.

The close count reduced the former safe Coalition seat to marginal status.

The Liberals pre-selected Kapterian to contest the seat after Fletcher retired from federal politics.

If she wins Bradfield, Boele will be the 10th independent elected to the new parliament.

As of Monday, Labor had 93 seats in the 150-member House of Representatives. The Coalition had 43 seats, the Greens had one and other minor parties two seats.

The other seat still in doubt is Calwell, with the electoral commission determining the final two candidates in the Victorian seat because of the complexity of the result.

-with AAP