Polls close in New Zealand election | Community

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Your Location: International

Community > Politics

font size

digg

RSS

Polls close in New Zealand election

Early results in New Zealand's election favour prime minister John Key and his centre-right National Party to win by a landslide.

BY Dominique Schwartz | Nov 26, 2011

The National Party is holding about 50 per cent of the vote to Labour's 30 per cent in early counting, while the Greens are hovering around 10 per cent.

Winston Peter's New Zealand First is also tracking above the 5 per cent threshold needed to get his party into parliament.

Political analysts say the early results are for votes made ahead of election day and would tend to favour the National Party and New Zealand First.

The country's Electoral Commission says advance votes are up one-fifth on the last election in 2008 and could account for more than 10 per cent of the overall vote.

Voting is not compulsory across the Tasman, and all political parties had been encouraging their supporters to get to the polls before they closed this afternoon.

Tally workers have been counting votes through the afternoon and should know all the results by later tonight.

Prime minister John Key and Opposition Labour leader Phil Goff are at home and will head to their respective party headquarters when a result is known.

Opinion polls have suggested a National party-led government will be returned, possibly with enough votes to govern in its own right.