AUCKLAND: New Zealand faced the prospect Sunday of weeks of political wrangling after a knife-edge election that produced no clear winner but saw record gains for minor parties.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon declared his right-wing coalition had a mandate to form the country's next government -- while conceding results remained too close to call definitively.
Preliminary results have his National Party winning the most seats, giving them a very slim majority of just two if combined with their coalition partners, the populist NZ First and the libertarian ACT.
"New Zealanders have given us the biggest seats in parliament, 42 seats as it stands today, and a pathway to form a government," Luxon told journalists on Sunday.
"There's no doubt about it. We've got a mandate."
He said his National Party had done well given the war in the Middle East and subsequent global fuel shock that has been widely blamed for New Zealand's economic difficulties.
"What we achieved, I think, was pretty good."
Opposition Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has joked that while the country had spoken, "it may take us a little bit longer to figure out exactly what it is that you've said".
But the results show he has only a very narrow path to power for his left-wing grouping, which also includes the Green Party and Te Pati Maori, representing the interests of New Zealand's Indigenous community.
Luxon will run a caretaker government until the final votes are announced on November 27.
"I think everyone's over politics, so let's all just have a bit of a break for the next three weeks," he said.
That final tally will include nearly 400,000 so-called "special votes" -- among them around 100,000 cast overseas and by people within New Zealand but outside the local electorate in which they live.
Historically, special votes leaned left, potentially giving the Labour or Green parties an additional one or two seats at the expense of the right-bloc.
This week's knife-edge poll drew intense attention to the country's minor parties, in particular the upstart centrist Opportunity Party.
Under the country's mixed-member proportional representation system, voters must tick two options -- a general party list as well as an individual member to represent their electorate.
Results put Opportunity winning seven seats, potentially giving the party a kingmaker role in the next government.
With 100 percent of the preliminary count done, Luxon's National are on 42 projected seats and Labour on 36, according to the electoral commission.
The Green Party is in third place with 16 seats, while ACT are on 13 and NZ First have 12. Te Pati Maori have five.
Luxon said Sunday that while it was "unlikely" he would need the Opportunity Party to form a government, he was willing to work with leader Qiulae Wong on issues on which they agree.
"We can work with our current coalition partners to form the government," he said.
"What I've also said, though, is that there is a need for us to go forward in cross-party collaboration in a lot deeper way."
Many Kiwis are struggling to make ends meet -- the price of basic goods remains stubbornly elevated, and unemployment at its highest in more than a decade.
On the streets of Wellington, voters told AFP that those rising costs had been top of their minds when they cast their ballots.
Rahul Jain, a 33-year-old support worker, said he hoped the next government could "bring the cost of living down".
"Everything has gone up, so that's the biggest issue right now."
Mary Scott, a lending operations representative, said she hoped politicians in power would keep ordinary New Zealanders in mind.
"I know we're always going to be impacted by overseas events, but what's happening here?" she said.
"They can actually do a lot with the money they have in the bank, and they can make fair policies for everyone.
"They can make the wealthy pay a bit more." - AFP
