After three weeks of waiting, New Zealanders are finally set to learn their election results and the shape of the next government.
The country swung to the right in the October 14 poll, with the conservative National party replacing Labour as the most popular party.
Kiwis voted to turf out Labour, led by Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins, after six years in government and instead make National leader Chris Luxon prime minister.
However, Mr Luxon's coalition is not yet clear, as he - and every other New Zealander - is waiting for the final vote tally.
The count on the night showed National with 50 seats and the right-wing ACT party with 11 in a 121-MP parliament, the smallest possible majority.
That count does not include postal votes, overseas votes and other "special" votes which comprise about 20 per cent of the overall tally, and are being folded into the count since polling day.
Australian elections have similar waits to finalise ballot-counting, but electoral commissions regularly publish progress counts.
In New Zealand, there has been no update for 19 days, exasperated many, including the "incredibly frustrated" incoming prime minister.
"Three weeks is a long time and it's frustrating for everybody that we can't get results quicker than what we can," Mr Luxon told Newstalk ZB.
He said he had "no idea" why it took so long.
"We need it done fast as possible and if that means a 24-7 to get a vote counted, it's an important part of our democracy ... They could do a daily release of votes as they are counted," he said.
"There's a lot of questions to ask when we get into government."
While National hopes to form a two-party government with ACT, the special votes typically skew left, giving an expectation they will miss out on a parliamentary majority as a twosome.
That will mean Mr Luxon will be beholden to Winston Peters' NZ First party, not a route Mr Luxon or ACT leader David Seymour are keen to travel.
Both used the campaign to warn Kiwis off voting for Mr Peters, who has adopted increasingly anti-authoritarian and fringe political views.
Mr Peters pandered to anti-vaccine Kiwis by campaigning for a beefed-up COVID-19 royal commission, wants to designate local gangs as terrorist entities, and is against referring to New Zealand by its Maori name, Aotearoa.
His party won just six per cent, but enough to potentially have a mighty say in the next government.
During the three-week wait for the special votes, Mr Luxon spent time "chemistry-building" with his possible coalition partners, in the hope of swiftly concluding talks on the release of the final count.
That included a private dinner with Mr Peters, and their partners, at his Auckland home this week on the same night Mr Peters caused outrage by wrongly suggesting Ms Ardern held back information about the Christchurch mosques terror attack.
Mr Luxon has kept all negotiations private, managing the process without leaks.
"We've been working really diligently, all parties involved," he said.
"We're working in good faith and goodwill. We want strong, stable government on the other side and we're working our way through those issues."
On Thursday, Mr Luxon said coalition talks were unlikely to conclude in time for him to attend the Cook Islands-hosted Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit next week.
He proposed to send National's foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee and current deputy prime minister, Labour's Carmel Sepuloni, as a bipartisan double-act in his place.
