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With a third of the votes counted, Jacinda Ardern’s center-left Labor Party was at 50.6% and was forecast to take about 66 seats in the 120-member parliament.
FILE: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrives at a press conference to speak to the media about changing the date of the 2020 general election in Parliament in Wellington on August 17, 2020. Image : AFP.
WELLINGTON – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was on track to achieve an unprecedented outright majority in New Zealand’s general election on Saturday, building on the success in the fight against Covid-19 to win a second term and the opportunity to implement her agenda of reforms.
With a third of the votes counted, Ardern’s center-left Labor Party stood at 50.6% and was forecast to take about 66 seats in the 120-member parliament.
No leader has achieved an absolute majority since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996, leading to a succession of multi-party governments.
While the numbers are early, they beat pre-election opinion polls and would represent Labor’s strongest result since 1946 if held constant.
The opposition National Party was at 25.7%, or 33 seats, and appears to be heading for its worst result in nearly 20 years.
Labor President Claire Szabo attributed the performance to the charismatic Ardern, who unleashed a wave of support dubbed “Jacinda-mania” when she took over the party in 2017, which languished at 24% in polls.
“This is a great night for us, we are sitting on the edge of our seats,” he told TVNZ.
“There’s no question that the great and strong leadership we’ve had from Jacinda Ardern has been a huge factor in all of this.”
Ardern has called the vote “Covid’s choice” and has campaigned on his government’s success in eliminating community transmission of the virus, which has caused just 25 deaths in a population of five million.
The pandemic is just one in a series of crises that displayed Ardern’s leadership qualities during a torrid first term, even as critics criticized her for failing to deliver on key commitments such as protecting the environment and alleviating child poverty.
She showed empathy and decisive action on gun control after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslim worshipers in the attack on Christchurch mosques in March 2019.
Ardern again found himself comforting a shocked nation when a volcanic eruption on White Island, also known as Whakaari, killed 21 people and left dozens more with horrific burns.
“No matter what crisis comes my way, you will always have the assurance that I will give my all for this job, even if it means a great sacrifice,” he said this week.
‘Extraordinary victory’
Ardern has also faced criticism during his first term for failing to deliver on some key promises, such as improving housing affordability and fighting child poverty.
Greens co-leader Marama Davidson, who was in coalition with the Labor Party during the first term, said the prime minister now has a mandate to implement change.
“I want to congratulate Jacinda Ardern and her team for an extraordinary victory,” he said.
“The results show how much New Zealanders want a truly progressive and strong government.”
Judith Collins, the combative leader of the center-right National Party, has focused on the specter of Greens forcing Ardern to adopt a wealth tax aimed at the aspiring middle class.
But his attacks failed to find traction and the party appears to be well below the 44.5% it recorded in the last elections of 2017.
The conservative leader, known as “Crusher” for her hard-line policies when she was a police minister in a previous government, has vowed to remain leader regardless of the outcome.
Approximately 3.5 million people are registered to vote, and 1.9 million, or more than half, cast their votes early, a much higher number than in previous elections.
The vote was originally set for September 19, but was delayed by a virus outbreak in Auckland that has now been contained.
Collins, who took over the National Party in July after a period of turmoil when the party had three leaders in three months, said the false start had cost him the momentum of his campaign.
Voters also voted in two referendums, one on the legalization of recreational cannabis and the other on the legalization of euthanasia, although the results of those votes will not be known until October 30.
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