By Lucy Craymer
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon and his centre-right National Party are expected to start negotiations with the ACT Party Sunday, after the two parties won a slim majority in the general election.
Luxon, 53, a former airline executive who has only been in parliament for three years, said in his victory speech late on Saturday that the country had voted for change and that would be delivered.
“You have given us the mandate to take New Zealand forward,” he said.
The conservative National Party won 50 seats and the ACT Party won 11, securing a majority of just one seat in the 121 seat parliament, according to provisional results from the Electoral Commission.
Chris Bishop, National Party Campaign Chairperson, said on TVNZ political show Q+A that Luxon had already spoken with ACT leader David Seymour and senior National members would meet this afternoon to discuss coalition negotiations.
While the two parties currently have the numbers to form a government, roughly 567,0000 of special votes or around 20% of the vote still have to be counted. The official result is due on Nov. 3.
Bishop said he expected National would lose at least one seat once these votes were counted.
If National and ACT do lose a seat they would not have enough seats to form a government and would need to reach an agreement with the populist party New Zealand First.
Under New Zealand’s mixed member proportional system it is very uncommon for a single party to form government, although Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government did in 2020.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Mark Potter)
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