2017 New Zealand general election
The 2017 New Zealand general election took place on 23 September 2017. Voters elected 120 members to the House of Representatives. The National Party won a plurality of the seats with 56, down from 60 in 2014. Labour made large gains following Jacinda Ardern becoming the party leader seven weeks prior to the election. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters announced that the party was intending to form a minority coalition government with the Labour Party of 55 seats.
About 2017 New Zealand general election in brief
The 2017 New Zealand general election took place on 23 September 2017. Voters elected 120 members to the House of Representatives. The National Party won a plurality of the seats with 56, down from 60 in 2014. Labour made large gains following Jacinda Ardern becoming the party leader seven weeks prior to the election, increasing its representation from 32 to 46 seats. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters announced that the party was intending to form a minority coalition government with the Labour Party of 55 seats, with confidence and supply agreement from the Green Party. This is the first Government in New Zealand under MMP where the most popular party is not part of the Government. It was the first election for Bill English as incumbent Prime Minister, having replaced John Key on 12 December 2016. It marked an end to nine years under the Fifth National Government, and the beginning of the Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand. Around 3.57 million people were registered to vote, with 2. 63 million turning out. The election saw five parties return to Parliament,Down from seven in 2014 and the lowest number since the introduction of MMP in 1996. The Māori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell lost his seat of Waiariki and, with the party’s vote count being below the threshold of 5%, they also lost their list MP, Marama Fox, and departed Parliament. The United Future leader and sole MP Peter Dunne retired from politics during the campaign due to poor polling in his electorate of Ōhāriu and his successor failed to win the seat.
Even with support partner ACT retaining its sole seat, the existing National minority government were short of the 61 seats needed to govern, and Bill English declared that the arrangement would not be continued. This marked the first time since 1975 where both major parties had leadership changes. The previous parliament was elected on 20 September 2014 and was officially dissolved on 22 August 2017. The anti-immigration populist party New Zealander Winston Peters was reappointed Deputy Prime Minister. He had first held the role in 1996–98, and was first held it in 1996-98. It is the only parliamentary party to gain support but a large portion came at the expense of the Greens, who lost almost half their seats following co- leader Metiria Turei’s resignation over self-admitted benefit and electoral fraud. The political party or bloc with the majority of seats in the House forms the government. The House will add seats to cover the overhang where a party wins more seats than it is entitled to under the party vote system. The 2014 election saw a one-seat extra-seat where PeterDunne won the electorate when his party was entitled to zero seats under the United Future Party. Since the introduction in 1996, no party has won enough votes to win an outright majority of votes to operate as a coalition government or to obtain sufficient confidence and support to operate a minority government as a party or as a electoral bloc.
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This page is based on the article 2017 New Zealand general election published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 23, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
