The election is over. People voted, votes were counted and the results were announced. In fact, it is not yet finished as these are provisional results, results until the special votes are counted. New Zealanders who were overseas were able to cast a special vote, usually at a New Zealand embassy. Sometimes, votes are counted again if any electorate results are very close.
The National Party won 61 seats which gave it a majority. However, John Key said he would talk to the parties which supported National in the past – ACT, United Future and Maori. The polls before the election indicated that National would win so this is probably not a surprise. However, this is the first time under MMP that a party has won enough seats on its own. It does not need a coalition partner.
The polls also indicated correctly that Labour would be a long way behind National. Labour lost two seats (34 in 2011 and 32 in 2014) and the Greens lost one seat (14 last time and 13 this time). New Zealand first gained 3 seats (from 8 last time to 11 this time). The Maori Party has only 2 seats this time (5 in 2011). The Internet-Mana Party, and the Conservative Party did not win any seats.
The Labour Party now has to decide what to change so that it can have a better result next time. David Cunnliffe said he wants to stay as leader but the Party will decide.
Vocabulary
• provisional – temporary, it may change
• cast a vote – make a vote
• majority – more than 50% (there are 120 MPs in Parliament)
• indicated – showed, gave an idea
• polls – someone asks a large number of people who they will vote for
• gained – get an increase
Grammar
• Passive is used in the first paragraph because the people who counted the votes or announced the results are not important here – it’s the votes and results that are important.
• ‘would’ is used to indicate someone in the past (e.g. yesterday) will do something in the future