Phew!
09.17.05 (10:49 am) [edit]
Well, thankfully, it seems my pessimism this morning was somewhat precipitous. By the time to vote counting finished around midnight, Labour had caught up to, and then passed, National in the party vote. Better still, the Greens edged their way over the 5% threshold required to get represenatives into parliament (unless of course you win a constituency seat, which the Greens were never going to). But boy oh boy was it close! Look at these results from the official election results website:
[Source: electionresults.govt.nz]
Look in particular at how close the two main parties are to each other! A fraction more than one percent of the vote, and only one seat out of 122 in it. My goodness.
Now, both Helen Clark, the incumbent Prime Minister and leader of the Labour party, and Dr. Don Brash, leader of the National party, will spend the next two days in meetings and on conference calls and private calls with the leaders of the small parties to see who can form either a coalition with a majority, or a minority coalition as well as an agreement from another small party to cooperate on matters of confidence and supply, which would effectively enable a minority government to be formed. Because Labour got the larger proportion of the party vote, Helen Clark certainly has the upper hand in the bargaining over Don Brash and National. It ought to be possible for her to form a centre-left coalition government with the Progressives (1 seat), the Greens (6 seats) and the Maori Party (4 seats) with some sort of confidence and supply agreement with New Zealand First. But not necessarily. Progressives and Greens are in the bag for Labour as coalition parties and both campaigned accordingly. But if the Maori Party's coalition demands are to unpalatable or unreasonable to Labour, it could all fall apart. In other words, it's looking positive to cntre-left, but we are not home and hosed yet.
Add in the complicating factor that the Special Votes, i.e. votes that were cast out of electorate by people travelling within New Zealand or overseas on election day (my vote is one of those), won't all be counted for at least twelve days, and there is still plenty of potential for things to change. They won't change by much of course, but as it stands, a shift of one seat could mean the difference between being able to form a government and not being able to. As I understand it, the Greens traditionally do well in the Special Votes, as do National. It is not inconceivable that we could yet end up with a hung parliament, or with and unstable government which wobbles and falls within a year. Personally, my money's on a centre-left coalition with an extremely narrow majority, but able to govern nonetheless. But then I've been wrong before.
Next post: I'll be assessing how I fared with my political punditry a week out from the election.
Party | % of Party vote | Electorate Seats | List Seats | Total seats | |
| Labour | 40.74% | 39 | 19 | 50 | |
| National | 39.63% | 39 | 18 | 49 | |
| NZ First | 5.84% | 7 | 7 | ||
| Green | 5.07% | 6 | 6 | ||
| Maori | 1.98% | 4 | 4 | ||
| United Future | 2.72% | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| ACT | 1.52% | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Progressive | 1.21% | 1 | 1 |
[Source: electionresults.govt.nz]
Look in particular at how close the two main parties are to each other! A fraction more than one percent of the vote, and only one seat out of 122 in it. My goodness.
Now, both Helen Clark, the incumbent Prime Minister and leader of the Labour party, and Dr. Don Brash, leader of the National party, will spend the next two days in meetings and on conference calls and private calls with the leaders of the small parties to see who can form either a coalition with a majority, or a minority coalition as well as an agreement from another small party to cooperate on matters of confidence and supply, which would effectively enable a minority government to be formed. Because Labour got the larger proportion of the party vote, Helen Clark certainly has the upper hand in the bargaining over Don Brash and National. It ought to be possible for her to form a centre-left coalition government with the Progressives (1 seat), the Greens (6 seats) and the Maori Party (4 seats) with some sort of confidence and supply agreement with New Zealand First. But not necessarily. Progressives and Greens are in the bag for Labour as coalition parties and both campaigned accordingly. But if the Maori Party's coalition demands are to unpalatable or unreasonable to Labour, it could all fall apart. In other words, it's looking positive to cntre-left, but we are not home and hosed yet.
Add in the complicating factor that the Special Votes, i.e. votes that were cast out of electorate by people travelling within New Zealand or overseas on election day (my vote is one of those), won't all be counted for at least twelve days, and there is still plenty of potential for things to change. They won't change by much of course, but as it stands, a shift of one seat could mean the difference between being able to form a government and not being able to. As I understand it, the Greens traditionally do well in the Special Votes, as do National. It is not inconceivable that we could yet end up with a hung parliament, or with and unstable government which wobbles and falls within a year. Personally, my money's on a centre-left coalition with an extremely narrow majority, but able to govern nonetheless. But then I've been wrong before.
Next post: I'll be assessing how I fared with my political punditry a week out from the election.
posted by: Lawson (reply)
post date: 01.19.06 (3:48 pm)
The long run he said noting for many brazilians home loan mortgage refinance mortgage. Services overseas set. No matter how underwriting servicing matter. To save consumers and interest rates were previously possible automatically take its. And then overestimate in order to measures quot month home loan. consumers to open and delinquencies soarunfortunately next largest banks parts are being. remains of consumer offer new products to the merchant remains. Amount spent with credit card companies.
