While the tide well and truly went out on Labour on election night, there are still several factors complicating the formation of a National and ACT coalition government. Special votes are yet to be counted, with the official final result still three weeks away.
In past elections special votes have boosted the left parties. If that is the case this year, we won’t know by how much until November 3. Consequently, the preliminary results may be slightly skewed against the left.
On these figures, National won 50 seats (up 17 since the 2020 election), Labour 34 (down 31), the Greens 14 (up four), ACT 11 (up one), NZ First eight (returning to parliament), and Te Pāti Māori/the Māori party four (up two). There are 121 seats overall (up one from the last parliament).
