New Zealand election too close to call as overseas and special votes wait
Christopher Luxon's coalition leads narrowly on preliminary results, but uncounted special votes could still change who governs.
New Zealand's general election produced no clear winner on Saturday night. Overseas ballots and other special votes are still to be counted, and The Guardian reported that official results are not due until 27 November.
On preliminary figures, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's centre-right National party and its partners, Act and New Zealand First, have enough seats to govern. The Guardian put the bloc at 67 seats, with National on 42, Act on 13 and New Zealand First on 12, three ahead of the left. The South China Morning Post cited an Electoral Commission projection giving the coalition a majority of two seats.
The two big parties were almost level on the party vote. The Post reported that with more than 95 per cent of ballots counted, both sat just under 30 per cent, a few thousand votes apart. The Guardian said National finished 0.02 per cent ahead of Labour.
According to The Guardian, Labour, led by Chris Hipkins, won 35 seats, the Greens 16 and Te Pāti Māori five. Adding the seven seats of the centrist newcomer Opportunity still leaves the left three short.
Special votes include ballots cast overseas and outside a voter's own electorate. The Guardian said about 600,000 were cast in 2023, or 21 per cent of the total. They tend to favour the left, and in 2023 they gave Te Pāti Māori and the Greens three extra seats between them. The BBC said Labour could still take power.
Overhang seats may push parliament to a record 130 members, making 65 the number needed to govern, The Guardian reported. National could gain five extra seats, but four senior ministers, Nicola Willis, Paul Goldsmith, Chris Bishop and Gerry Brownlee, will not return. Te Pāti Māori picked up five overhang seats.
Opportunity, on 5.9 per cent, is the first new party to clear the 5 per cent threshold since New Zealand adopted proportional voting in 1996 without having split from an existing party, The Guardian said. The BBC said the party, led by former KPMG consultant Qiulae Wong, may hold the balance in coalition talks. Wong told supporters in Auckland she was "stoked".
The Hindu reported that the campaign was dominated by living costs, with unemployment at its highest in more than a decade and the war in West Asia and a global fuel shock widely blamed for the hit to the trade-dependent economy.
Luxon told supporters the result was "too close to call" and that caretaker conventions would apply. In Upper Hutt, Hipkins said voters had spoken but "it may take a bit longer to work out what they've said". Special vote results are expected in two weeks, The Guardian said, and coalition negotiations could then take several more weeks.
Sources: The Guardian, New Zealand faces weeks of uncertainty with election ‘too close to call’; South China Morning Post, New Zealand election first count ends with 2 main parties nearly deadlocked; BBC News, New Zealand election 'too close to call' - so who will be next PM?; The Hindu, New Zealand vote still too close to call as results trickle in.
