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National Party Loses One Seat Rest Remain The Same
National Party Loses One Seat Rest Remain The Same
The Chief Electoral Officer has released the final election results that confirm Labour is the party with the most votes and takes 50 MPs into the new Parliament. National loses one MP achieving a final election result with 48 MPs in its caucus.
Parliament’s overhang reduces to 121 MPs in total.
The Chief Electoral Officer stated this morning: “All electorate candidates leading on election night have been confirmed as winning their seats. Turnout 80.92% (2002 - 76.98%)”.
It is expected that Labour leader Helen Clark will pull together a minority government coalition with Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party and seek a working understanding with New Zealand First, the Maori Party, and the Green Party.
The United Future Party with its stable of three MPs looks more estranged than ever from the Labour vote-block, and it may be impossible to pull UF into the loose arrangement of co-operating parties.
The final vote tally is: Labour - 50 seats National – 48 seats New Zealand First – 7 seats Green Party – 6 seats Maori Party – 4 seats United Future – 3 seats ACT – 2 seats Progressives – 1 seat.
Labour will lead multi-party talks beginning Monday and talks are expected to continue beyond next weekend while the Maori Party returns to Marae to conduct consultation hui around the country.
Caretaker Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said today: “Discussions have been occurring in the past two weeks with the aim of forming working relationships between Labour and other parties. I now look forward to engaging further with those parties that have expressed a willingness to discuss arrangements with us.
“Further talks to progress arrangements around forming a government are likely to be held in the coming week,” Helen Clark said.
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