NEW ZEALAND: Voters reward pandemic response
In New Zealand, effective pandemic response was evidently rewarded in an overwhelming election win for the ruling party. New Zealand’s voting system makes it incredibly rare for one party to win an outright majority, but that happened in October, when the Labour Party led by Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern won 65 of the 120 seats in the House of Representatives, 19 up from its 2017 election total. Perceptions of effective pandemic performance seemed a key factor; before COVID-19 struck, opinion polls had indicated a tight race between Labour and the main opposition National Party.
We ended up with a single party rather than the coalition government we’ve had for a number of years. But within that single party there is a huge amount of diversity, with a lot of women leaders which means that there are now 50 per cent female members of parliament. Representation of LGBTQI+ and ethnic communities has increased, and a lot of members of parliament are newcomers who had never been members before.
Julie Haggie
