NZ Election 2011 results National lead, Greens and New Zealand First triumph

Voter turnout for Election 2011 was very poor with over a quarter of available voters not turning up to vote. In what was an interesting New Zealand political election 2011, the key results of the night before special votes (The Electoral Commission said there were an estimated 240,247 special declaration votes yet to be counted, accounting for 10.7 per cent of the total vote. They include an estimated 19,527 overseas votes.) have been taken into account are:

National 60 seats
Labour 34 seats
Green Party 13 seats
New Zealand First 8 seats
Maori Party 3 seats
ACT 1 seat
United First 1 seat

It meant that the party vote split was National 48%, Labour 27.1%, Green Party 10.6%, New Zealand First 6.8%, Others 4.0%, Maori Party 1.4%, ACT 1.1%, United Future 0.6%

Nationals triumph was certainly a triumph for John Key. On preliminary results, National will hold 60 seats in a 121-seat Parliament, so must call on the support of ACT MP John Banks and United Future leader Peter Dunne to form a slim majority.

The big winners on the night were the Green Party that took 10.6% of the vote and gained 13 seats, although you get the feeling they could have actually done better still. They may increase this on special votes as traditionally they do very well from these.

Despite being snubbed by the media at the start of the campaign, Winston Peters is back in a big way with New Zealand First taking 6.8% of the vote and gaining 8 seats. In typical Winston style, when Guyon Espiner (on the TVNZ Q & A TV show) asked, “why do you think it is that after three years you got back last night?” he answered;

WINSTON     Well, it wouldn’t be your polls, for a start, because they were 700% out again at the start of the campaign and the result.

GUYON         Look, I’m not talking about the polls.

WINSTON     Well, of course you wouldn’t want to talk about them. But we got back because we put in the hard yards, talking to people the old-fashioned way in country halls in places like Riverton all over NZ. You know, we didn’t kiss any babies or terrorise them. We didn’t go to schools where they didn’t vote. We did it the old-fashioned way, and had we got more coverage, we would have done much better.

Labour has had its worst result in an election in its history and look set to have Labour Leader Phil Goff resign after Tuesday. National moves into discussions over the next few days to confirm the formation of the government.

There are a number of seats very closely balanced including an unprecedented election night draw between Labour’s Brendan Burns and National’s Nicky Wagner with both on 10493 votes after all ballots were counted in Christchurch Central last night. It is expected to take 14 days for special votes to be cleared, so they are both waiting it out to see the final result. A few of the other close seat results will be hoping special votes deliver what they want too.

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