The National Party, led by Prime Minister John Key, has romped home to govern New Zealand for a second term on the back of a record percentage of votes polled in its favour.
Opinion polls over recent months consistently indicated that National would be a winner – the big question in the run up to the election was whether it would be able to govern alone, without support from the minor parties.
But in the final tally, National has fallen a bit short in being able to be going it alone and will need the support of its two old allies, ACT and United Future. Both these minor parties have been able to muster just a single MP, just about avoiding political oblivion.
But the way the numbers have stacked up, even a motley alliance of all centre left parties would not have the numbers to present an alternative to the people of New Zealand.
In the next few days, Prime Minister Key is expected to speak to the leaders of ACT and UF parties, John Banks and Peter Dunne respectively, as also to the leadership of the Maori Party, which has returned three MPs. Logically, the Maori Party should support National because even if it supports a grand left-led alliance (including New Zealand First), there is no way such an alliance could muster numbers enough to govern.
Besides, it has had a fairly good relationship with National in the last government, though there is some possibility that it might have lost some support because it aligned with a centre right party. Undoubtedly, it lost considerable traction in the split, which led to Hone Harawira moving out and starting the Mana Party.
For Labour, it has been a complete rout. It garnered just 34 seats and its share of vote was worse than what was predicted in most polls. It got just 27.1 per cent of the vote, one of its worst ever electoral performances.
In what is thought to be the worst turnout in decades, the big surprise of the election was the resurrection of Winston Peter’s NZ First Party, rising Phoenix like from the ashes of its decimation in the 2008 elections. Reams will be written on how this happened in the coming weeks and months, but the party polled an incredible 6.8 per cent of the vote.
The Green Party became the first-ever minor party, since MMP elections began, to get more than 10 seats – it got 13. The Maori Party got 3, and ACT, United Future and Mana managed a seat each.
Meanwhile, despite a spirited performance in the final days of the campaign aided by media training, Phil Goff’s leadership of Labour failed to cut mustard. Clearly, the New Zealand voter has rejected the party’s economic policy package, with considerable numbers of its traditional base abandoning it to put their trust in the Green Party and even NZ First.
Undoubtedly, there will be a change in the leadership of the Labour Party – probably as soon as next week, something that Mr Goff seemed to indicate in his speech conceding defeat.
National improved its position over the 2008 poll and its leadership must probably be relieved that it has ended up in a far stronger position than what many of the political commentators had predicted – especially of having to preside over an inherently unstable government, supported by a ragtag coalition of disparate interests and agendas.
That will not be the case, which gives the party a head start in policy implementation.