New Zealand - Election - 2017
New Zealand general elections are held every 3 years. Prime Minister Bill English announced this year’s General Election would be held on Saturday, 23 September 2017.
National will be campaigning on its strong record in Government and will go into the election with a positive and ambitious programme that will back New Zealanders to succeed. English said “Our economy continues to grow and diversify, more kids are staying at school longer and getting better qualifications, more people are getting faster and more efficient healthcare, we are investing at record levels in key infrastructure projects like schools, roads and ultra-fast broadband and we are supporting our most vulnerable by increasing benefit rates and investing in programmes to support them into work."
According to the Newshub-Reid Research poll on 15 June 2017, with 100 days to go until the election, National was holding strong and steady on 47.4 percent. But Labour was falling way back on 26.4 percent. The potential kingmaker, New Zealand First was up to 9.4 percent - a record high on this poll. National was set to get 58 seats in the House, and with its three support partners, it would reach the required 61 to govern. For the Labour/Green alliance, even after combined, it was only set to get 48 seats total. Even if it got New Zealand First's 12 seats, the Left would only get to 60 - not enough.
Most observers expected a National led coalition similar to 2014. Under this outcome, the National, Maori, ACT and United Future parties between them would have a majority of seats in Parliament (as per the post-2014 government); but National would not have enough to govern by themselves.
Peter Ellis forecasted the most likely outcome as neither the National/Maori/ACT/United Future nor the Labour/Green combination would have a majority of seats, but either of them could form a majority with support from New Zealand First. Note that this included some scenarios where Labour + Greens + New Zealand First seats exactly tie with National + Maori + ACT + United Future.
Political scientist Bryce Edwards said "I think this election is going to bore people a lot. It's going to be a fairly bland affair and without anyone like a Jeremy Corbyn to electrify youth and be that lightening rod, we're not going to see any sort of youth-quake in this election. It's going to be a youth yawn if anything."
Voters who are overseas can vote from 6 September to 23 September. 23 June 2017 marked teh start of the regulated period - the three month period before election day where candidate, party and third party election expense limits apply for advertising published during this period. Third parties (all those who are not parties or candidates) were encouraged to engage in elections by promoting issues important to them.
Based on the early count, National would have 58 seats in the House, short of the 61 needed for a majority. It could only count on the one seat brought to the table by ACT and would need another partner to govern. The Maori Party failed to win any seats. National had 46.0 percent of the vote, with Labour on 35.8 percent and the Green Party on 5.9 percent. With no single party able to form a government alone, NZ First's 7.5 percent suggested NZ First leader Winston would effectively decide the make-up of Parliament for the next three years. While a new government had not yet formed, and special votes had not yet been counted, Parliament would definitely look different over the next few years. Each party's proportions were expected to change, and there would be no United Future or Maori Party in Parliament.
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