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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labor Party held a dominant lead in New Zealand’s general election on Saturday, early counts showed.
FILE PHOTO: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern participates in a televised debate with national leader Judith Collins on TVNZ in Auckland, New Zealand on September 22, 2020. Fiona Goodall / Pool via REUTERS
WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labor Party had a big early lead in New Zealand’s general election on Saturday (October 17), initial figures showed after a campaign dominated by its handling of COVID-19.
Labor Party leader Ardern, 40, and National Party chief Collins, 61, clashed in elections to form the country’s 53rd parliament, a referendum on Ardern’s three-year term.
Labor won 50.3 percent of the vote, compared to 25.9 percent for the opposition National Party, with 7 percent of the votes counted, according to the Electoral Commission. Of the current partners in the Labor coalition, the First Nationalist Party of New Zealand had 2.2% and the Green Party 8.7%.
Labor had led by wide margins in opinion polls before the vote.
READ: Comment – Jacinda Ardern’s transformation is almost complete
Polls had initially suggested that Ardern was on her way to forming an exclusively Labor government, the first absolute majority government since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996. But more recent polls have indicated that she may need the support. continuum of the minor Green Party.
The election was delayed a month after new COVID-19 infections in Auckland, which led to a second shutdown in the country’s largest city.
New Zealand, with a population of 5 million, currently has no community cases of COVID-19 and is among the few nations where people are not required to wear masks or follow social distancing.
Labor is seeking a second term thanks to Ardern’s success in containing COVID-19, while Collins argues that it is in the best position to address financial challenges post-pandemic.
READ: Ardern vows to resign if he loses New Zealand election
New Zealanders are also voting in referenda to legalize euthanasia and recreational marijuana. This latest vote could make New Zealand the third country in the world to allow the use and sale of cannabis by adults nationwide, after Uruguay and Canada.
The results of the referendums will be announced on October 30.
New Zealand switched to a mixed proportional system of members in 1996 in which a party or coalition needs 61 of the 120 seats in Parliament, usually around 48 percent of the vote, to form a government.
This means that minority parties often play an influential role in determining which main party rules.
