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Jacinda Ardern wins again in New Zealand

 
 
 
lpetrich

lpetrich

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New Zealand election: Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party scores landslide win - BBC News
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has won a landslide victory in the country's general election.

With all votes tallied, Ms Ardern's centre-left Labour Party won 49.1%, bringing a projected 64 seats and a rare outright parliamentary majority.

The opposition centre-right National Party won 26.8% in Saturday's poll - just 35 seats in the 120-seat assembly.

The poll was originally to be held in September but was postponed by a month after a renewed Covid-19 outbreak.

Ahead of Saturday's vote, more than a million people cast ballots in early polling, which opened on 3 October.
Click to expand...
  • Labour Party: 49.1% - 64 seats
  • National Party: 26.8% - 35 seats
  • ACT New Zealand: 8.0% - 10 seats
  • Green Party: 7.6% - 10 seats
  • Maori Party: 1% - 1 seat
  • Others: 7.7% - 0 seats
Total: 120 seats.

New Zealand uses a Mixed-Member Proportional system, with 71 district seats and 49 list seats. Each district elects one Member of Parliament, and the list seats are allocated to make all the members proportional by party. Each voter has two votes, one for their district MP and one for a party.

This system is used in some other places, like Germany, Scotland, and Wales.
Ms Ardern, 40, told her supporters after the victory: "New Zealand has shown the Labour Party its greatest support in almost 50 years. We will not take your support for granted. And I can promise you we will be a party that governs for every New Zealander."

...
Ms Ardern, who dubbed the poll "the Covid election", pledged to instil more climate-friendly policies, boost funding for disadvantaged schools and raise income taxes on top earners.

...
It's a big victory for a party that has been carried through by the star power of its leader. Ms Ardern has led New Zealand through a terrorist attack, a natural disaster and a global pandemic - and has done so focusing on kindness and compassion.
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 Jacinda Ardern
Ardern has described herself as a social democrat,[11] a progressive,[12] a republican[166] and a feminist,[167] citing Helen Clark as a political hero,[11][168] and has described capitalism as a "blatant failure" due to the extent of child poverty and homelessness in New Zealand.[169] She advocates a lower rate of immigration, suggesting a drop of around 20,000–30,000. Calling it an "infrastructure issue", she argues, "there hasn't been enough planning about population growth, we haven't necessarily targeted our skill shortages properly".[170] However, she wants to increase the intake of refugees.[171]

Ardern believes the retention or abolition of Māori electorates should be decided by Māori, stating, "[Māori] have not raised the need for those seats to go, so why would we ask the question?"[172] She supports compulsory teaching of the Māori language in schools.[11]

In September 2017, Ardern said she wanted New Zealand to have a debate on removing the monarch of New Zealand as its head of state.[166]

Ardern has spoken in support of same-sex marriage,[173] and she voted for the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013.[174] In 2018, she became the first New Zealand prime minister to march in a pride parade.[175] Ardern supported liberalising abortion law by removing abortion from the Crimes Act 1961.[176][177] In March 2020, she voted for the Abortion Legislation Act that amends the law to decriminalise abortion.[178][179]

Referring to New Zealand's nuclear-free policy, she described taking action on climate change as "my generation's nuclear-free moment".[180]

Ardern has voiced support for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[111] She has condemned the death of Palestinians during protests at the Gaza border.[181]
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Remarkable for someone like her to be in office.
 
NEW ZEALAND ELECTION RESULTS
Election - Overall Results - General Election 2020, Preliminary Results

[table="class: grid"]
[tr][th]Party[/th][th]Votes[/th][th]Pct[/th][th]Dist[/th][th]List[/th][th]Total[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Labour Party[/td][td]1,171,544[/td][td]49.1[/td][td]43[/td][td]21[/td][td]64[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]National Party[/td][td]638,606[/td][td]26.8[/td][td]26[/td][td]9[/td][td]35[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]ACT New Zealand[/td][td]190,139[/td][td]8.0[/td][td]1[/td][td]9[/td][td]10[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Green Party[/td][td]180,347[/td][td]7.6[/td][td]1[/td][td]9[/td][td]10[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Māori Party[/td][td]23,932[/td][td]1.0[/td][td]1[/td][td]-[/td][td]1[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]New Zealand First Party[/td][td]63,534[/td][td]2.7[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]New Conservative[/td][td]35,971[/td][td]1.5[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]The Opportunities Party (TOP)[/td][td]33,727[/td][td]1.4[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Advance NZ[/td][td]20,878[/td][td]0.9[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party[/td][td]7,590[/td][td]0.3[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]ONE Party[/td][td]6,474[/td][td]0.3[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Vision New Zealand[/td][td]2,780[/td][td]0.1[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]NZ Outdoors Party[/td][td]2,596[/td][td]0.1[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]TEA Party[/td][td]1,871[/td][td]0.1[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Sustainable New Zealand Party[/td][td]1,469[/td][td]0.1[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Social Credit[/td][td]1,351[/td][td]0.1[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]HeartlandNZ[/td][td]987[/td][td]0.0[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Total[/td][td]2,383,796[/td][td]100[/td][td]72[/td][td]48[/td][td]120[/td][/tr]
[/table]
New Zealand's population is 4.886 million (2018).

The nation's legislature is its House of Representatives without an upper hose. That house, its Legislative Council, was abolished in 1950.

The nation uses Mixed-Member Proportional Representation, also used by some other places, like Germany and Scotland and Wales. In it, the legislature is divided up into district seats and list seats. Each district has one seat, and the list seats are allocated to make the overall legislature approximately proportional by party. Each voter has two votes, one for a district-seat candidate and one for a party.

Jacinda Ardern herself was elected from a district seat, Mount Albert, a suburb of Auckland.

Why list seats? In proportional-by-party systems, parties usually publish lists of candidates that they want seated. Thus, "party list" for that kind of system.
 
I should also note that the NZ HR has a representation threshold of 5% - a party won't get any representation below that threshold unless its candidates get elected to district seats.

I also note a set-aside for the Maori community: 1 seat.
 
I wonder how different some of those platforms are.
 
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