Live: Counting begins in New Zealand election
What happened
New Zealand's general election ended in a near-deadlock, with the ruling National Party and Labour each just short of 30% of the vote after more than 95% of ballots were counted.
Only a few thousand votes separated the two, the Electoral Commission's figures show.
An Electoral Commission projection gives National's three-party coalition a two-seat majority, though neither Prime Minister Christopher Luxon nor Labour leader Chris Hipkins claimed victory or conceded defeat.
The centrist Opportunity party cleared the 5% threshold and could become a kingmaker in coalition talks, the Guardian reported.
Special votes, which include overseas ballots, will not be counted until Nov 27 and have typically favoured the left, so the result could still shift.
“Tonight, New Zealand has spoken. It may take us a little bit longer to figure out exactly what it is that you've said.”
Straits Times
Summary written by AI from 3 independent sources (ABC, Straits Times, Guardian) and checked automatically against them for copied text and numbers that are not in the sources. How we work
Open on the live globe →Who reported it
- 2026-11-07 06:01 UTCABC · abc.net.au ↗
- 2026-11-07 06:20 UTCAl Jazeera · aljazeera.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 06:48 UTCStraits Times · straitstimes.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 06:54 UTCGuardian · theguardian.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 07:47 UTCCyprus Mail via Reuters · cyprus-mail.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 08:15 UTCTimesLIVE via Reuters · timeslive.co.za ↗
- 2026-11-07 08:19 UTCArab News · arabnews.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 08:31 UTCThe Hindu same text as Arab News · thehindu.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 08:33 UTCEuronews · euronews.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 09:29 UTCIOL · iol.co.za ↗
- 2026-11-07 09:35 UTCDW · dw.com ↗
- 2026-11-07 13:12 UTCSCMP via Reuters · scmp.com ↗
- 2026-11-08 00:03 UTCTimes of Israel · timesofisrael.com ↗
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