Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party has won re-election in a landslide. Her government improved its vote-share by around 12 per cent from the last election in 2017, its best result since 1938.
New Zealand’s political system is proportional, allowing minor parties garnering more than 5 per cent of the vote to enter Parliament. Jacinda Ardern’s victory is so emphatic that, for the first time since the proportional system was set in place in 1996, it appears a majority party will be able to govern alone, without needing coalition parties or any kind of confidence and supply agreement. The machinery of the electoral system wasn’t really designed for such a result. Were the Labour government to fall just short of an outright majority, it has an amenable Green party to work with, which, taken together, give the left an unprecedented mandate.
The vote was originally due to be in September but was postponed by a month after a renewed Covid-19 outbreak.
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