New Zealand shifts rights as voters punish ruling party

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New Zealanders have given the country’s conservative opposition party a strong lead in Saturday’s election, early results show, as voters punish the ruling Labour Party nine months after former prime minister Jacinda Ardern suddenly resigned.

The rising cost of living has dominated campaigning with voters New Zealanders set to end to six years of Labour Party rule, the latter half of which was dominated by the country’s strict response to the coronavirus pandemic that successfully kept infections low but battered the economy.

With more than 50% of votes counted on Sunday evening, the center-right National Party, led by Christopher Luxon, had amassed more than 40% of ballots, according to CNN affiliates RNZ and Newshub.

The election took place the same day Australian voters appear to have struck down the first attempt at constitutional change in 24 years that would have recognized First Nations people in the nation’s founding document.

It remains unclear whether Luxon and his National Party have enough seats to form a government outright.

Coalitions are the norm under New Zealand’s mixed-member proportional system, which was introduced in 1996. The nationalist NZ First party and its leader Winston Peters could potentially become kingmaker in a coalition administration.

The only party to win a majority of votes and govern alone in the current political system was Labour in 2020, when Ardern won a landslide second term buoyed by her success at handling the country’s coronavirus outbreak.

But Ardern announced her shock resignation in January, saying she no longer had enough fuel in the tank to contest an election, and passed the reins of her party on to Hipkins.

It’s the first election in New Zealand following the end of strict coronavirus lockdown measures that have been a source of contention for many. The government’s “go hard and go early” approach to the pandemic saw New Zealand impose some of the world’s strictest border rules, separating families and shutting out almost all foreigners for almost two years.