- Article
The 27 November 1999 general election in New Zealand
Robert Henry Université de Nancy 2
- Article
The 27 November 1999 general election in New Zealand
Robert Henry Université de Nancy 2
ARTICLE
On Saturday 27 November 1999 New Zealand elected its 46th
unicameral Parliament by conducting its three-yearly general
election, the last of the century, using PR for the second
time. [For a virtual visit of New Zealand’s Parliament go to: http://www.parliament.govt.nz/visiting.html
]
| Prior to 12 October 1996 (the first election conducted under the PR system known as MMP, see below), all national elections were held using the British First-Past-the-Post system (FPP) in 99 single-member districts. Each district returned one MP to Parliament: the person winning a simple plurality, i.e. the highest vote in that district. The party with the most winning candidates formed the government and its leader became Prime Minister. The inequity of the system was notorious as a few examples will demonstrate. In both 1978 and 1981 the Labour party got more votes than the National party yet received fewer Parliament seats. In 1984, the New Zealand First party gained 12 percent of the vote and no seats. In 1993, the National party won just 35 percent of the votes nationwide, but 50.5 percent of the 99 seats. Indeed, since 1951 none of the governments in power in New Zealand ever had the support of a majority of the electorate. In 1996, New Zealand changed its FPP single-member constituency voting system to MPP, a mixed system derived from the German Additional Member system which combines FPP with PR. The following example will show the differences that result from the use of PR as opposed to that of FPP. At the 1996 general election, New Zealand’s National party won 36.66 percent of the 120 seats with 34.13 percent of the votes and was unable to form a government on its own. In the UK in 1997, Tony Blair’s Labour won 63.58 percent of the 659 seats with only 44.5 percent of the vote and won a stunning majority of 179 in the House of Commons. |
In a referendum held on 6 November 1993, New Zealanders
voted by 54 percent to 46 percent to replace the
First-Past-The-Post voting system ("winner takes all")
with a proportional representation voting system known
as Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP).
The New Zealand Mixed-Member
Proportional voting system (MMP)
| The New Zealand Mixed-Member Proportional
system (MMP) ensures that everyone who has voted for a party that has won
at least one MP in a constituency or received at least 5% of the vote has
someone representing them in Parliament.
Under MMP, each elector has two votes: an "electorate vote," i.e. one for a constituency representative, and a "party vote," i.e. one for a political party. • (S)he casts her/his electorate vote for a candidate in a single-member electorate (constituency), i.e. for the person (s)he would like her/his electorate to be represented by in Parliament. As with FPP, an electorate MP (or constituent MP) is the candidate who has won the highest number of votes in that constituency. [An "electorate" is the New Zealand equivalent of a "constituency" in the UK and of "a division" in Australia.] • (S)he casts her/his party vote for the party (s)he most wants to be represented in Parliament. As a result, the New Zealand Parliament is made up of "electorate MPs" and "list MPs." However, as votes are translated into seats by means of the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system, it is the party vote that determines the total number of seats any party that has crossed the 5 percent threshold or won at least one electorate seat is entitled to. Seats won by that party in electorates ("electorate seats") are therefore substracted from the total number of seats it is allocated according to its share of the vote. In other words, once the total number of seats each party is eligible to has been determined by a mathematical formula known as Saint-Laguë, a party’s list seats top up its electorate seats. Each party presents a list of candidates in rank order to the public before the election. Any registered party that has submitted a party list and has won at least one electorate MP or achieved at least 5 percent of party votes nationally is entitled to receive list seats. [In 1999, only 7 registered parties met one or both of the criteria: ACT New Zealand, Alliance, the Green Party, Labour, National, New Zealand First and United New Zealand. However, United New Zealand’s share of the party vote (0.54 ercent) was so low that it was not eligible to any list seat.] The counting process may be long. Thus, in 1999, it was not until the "special votes" had been counted and until it appeared that an electorate seat had been won in a marginal constituency that the Greens ended up with 5.16 percent of the vote and seven seats, whereas on election night they had stood well under the 5 percent threshold and had won no electoral seats. By the same token, it was only when it emerged after a recount that the leader of New Zealand First had finally held on to his Tauranga seat by 63 votes, that he was able to take four NZFirst list MPs into Parliament with him (although his party had won only 4. 26 percent of the party vote.) [For details about the New Zealand electoral system and the Saint-Laguë formula go to: http://www.elections.org.nz/elections/general/govt_elect.html and http://www.elections.org.nz/elections/resources/sainte_lague.html] |
The New Zealand House of Representatives
| The current New Zealand Parliament is unicameral:
it consists of only one house, the 120-member House of Representatives.
Under MMP, 67 seats are filled by "electorate MPs" (also known as "constituent
MPs"), who are elected in the 67 single-member constituencies New Zealand
is divided into, and 53 seats are filled from party lists by "list MPs."
[N.B. At the 12 October 1996 general election, the first to be held under
MMP, the figures were respectively 65 and 55.)
The 67 "electorate MPs" are elected in 61 "general electorates" and 6 "Maori electorates." [Maori or people of Maori descent, who make up 15 percent of the population, choose whether they want to vote for a general electorate or a Maori electorate. The MPs elected on 27 November 1999 were sworn in on 10 January 2000. Thirty-seven of the 120 MPs are women (30.83 percent).The 6 Maori electorate MPs all belong to the Labour party.] For information on MPs and Ministers go to: http://www.parliament.govt.nz/mps-and-ministers.html For biographies of MPs go to: http://www.ps.parliament.govt.nz/mps.htm |
In New Zealand, registering on the electoral roll is compulsory but voting is not. In 1999, 2,509,365 people enrolled for the general election [91.1 percent of the estimated eligible voting population] as against 2,418,587 in 1996.
With 2,127.245 votes counted, the turnout in 1999 was 84.77 percent as against 88.3 percent in 1996.
New Zealand election results, 1999 (1996 figures in the last two columns)
| Party | Party orientation |
Valid party votes (000)
|
% of all party votes
|
Electoral seats
|
List seats
|
Total seats
1999 |
% of party vote 1996
|
Total seats 1996
|
| Labour Party (NZLP) | social democratic |
800,199
|
38.74
|
41
|
8
|
49
|
28.27
|
37
|
| Alliance | progressive |
159,859
|
7.74
|
1
|
9
|
10
|
10.12
|
13
|
| Green Party of Aotearoa (GPA) | left-wing environmentalist |
106,560
|
5.16
|
1
|
6
|
7
|
||
| Centre-left |
1,066,618
|
51.64
|
43
|
23
|
66
|
38.39
|
50
|
|
| New Zealand First (NZFP) | centrist nationalist populist |
87,926
|
4.26
|
1
|
4
|
5
|
13.13
|
17
|
| National Party (NP) | conservative |
629,932
|
30.50
|
22
|
17
|
39
|
34.13
|
44
|
| ACT New Zealand (ACT) | libertarian |
145,493
|
7.04
|
0
|
9
|
9
|
6.17
|
8
|
| United New Zealand (UNZ) | liberal |
11,065
|
0.54
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
0.91
|
1
|
| Centre-right |
786,490
|
38.08
|
23
|
26
|
49
|
41.21
|
53
|
|
| Christian Heritage Party of New Zealand (CHP) | fundamentalist Christian |
49,154
|
2.38
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
4.35
|
0
|
| Future New Zealand (FNZ) | Christian |
23,033
|
1.12
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
||
| Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (ALCP) | one-issue party |
22,687
|
1.10
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1.42
|
0
|
| South Island Party | separatist |
2,912
|
0.14
|
|||||
| Republican Party |
292
|
0.01
|
||||||
| Other |
26,382
|
1.27
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
1.5
|
0
|
|
| TOTAL (valid party votes) |
2,065,494
|
100
|
67
|
53
|
120
|
100
|
120
|
Sources:
- http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/partystatus.html
- "Results of the November election at a glance" in Electoral brief, Issue 15, March 2000, ISSN: 1173-8308, available at: http://www.elections.org.nz/elections/news/index.html
- Waikato
University’s New Zealand Election Study (NZES): http://www.nzes.org/
| Thirty-eight of the 120 MPs in New Zealand’s
46th Parliament are women (31.66 percent), an increase of 3
since the 1996 election.
Fifteen of all MPs (12.5 percent) are Mäori, who also form nearly 20 percent of the MPs from the two government parties. [Mäori accounted for 14.5 percent of an estimated NZ population of 3,816,100 in September 1999.] This Parliament also contains a transsexual and two gays (representing Labour) and a dread-locked Rastafarian (representing the Green party). |
A centre-left minority government takes over from National
The 27 November 1999 general election in New Zealand, like the 1996 election before it but unlike elections prior to 1996, did not — indeed could not, owing to the vagaries of PR — produce an outright majority of seats for either of the two main political parties, the Labour party and the National party. Just as in 1996 the conservative National party after eight weeks of negotiations had finally hammered out a coalition agreement with a strange bedfellow, the centrist populist New Zealand First party, so in 1999 the party with most seats — Labour — had to form a coalition government with another left-wing party, the Alliance. Even then, this minority centre-left coalition government is still two seats short of the parliamentary majority of 61, but it can count on the support of the seven-strong left-wing Green Party over most issues. [The Greens are not part of the coalition for two reasons: (a) because they had no part in the pre-election negotiations between Labour and the Alliance and (b) because it was not until the final counts that it appeared they had gained any seats. They now expect to be regularly consulted by the coalition partners.] The new ministry takes over after nine years of National government under Jim Bolger (PM from 1990 to 1997) and Jenny Shipley, 47, a former farmer’s wife, who toppled him in a leadership contest and replaced him as PM in 1997. It will also be headed by a woman, Helen Clark, 49, a former political science lecturer, who became leader of the then opposition Labour party in 1993. The outgoing Prime Minister, Mrs Shipley, is probably paying the penalty for pursuing uncaring right-wing policies and failing to measure the impact of the Asian economic crisis on New Zealand. Her wrangling with her Deputy since 1996, the maverick New Zealand First leader [Winston Peters, one of whose parents was white and the other Maori] whom she sacked in 1998, may also have had some bearing on the results of this election. The two women led a nine-week lacklustre campaign which saw Ms Clark offering Blairite policies of economic orthodoxy mitigated by pledges to repeal conservative anti-union legislation, pump more money into social spending (especially schools and hospitals) and abolish interest repayments on student loans for those still studying, while Mrs Shipley advocated tax cuts and other right-wing economic measures to safeguard economic growth (which is poised to reach 4 percent in 2000).
The Labour-Alliance government will govern with 59 seats in the Parliament of 120, but the Greens’seven seats will boost that minority to a full 66 centre-left majority from the cross-benches whenever necessary. [N.B. With the Labour MP Jonathan Hunt taking the role of independent Speaker, that majority will be reduced by one to 65.] The main difficulty for Ms Clark might paradoxically come from her deputy, John Anderton, [the leader of the junior coalition partner, the Alliance], who will push for more radical left-wing policies than she is prepared to countenance. However, as any failings of the new Government are bound to be exploited by those advocating a return to FPP, the Alliance, the Greens and others can be relied on to do their best to make MMP work, i.e. guarantee the political stability of NZ over the next three years.
The new "executive council," whose composition was announced on 9 December, was sworn in on 10 December 1999. It comprises 26 ministers, 20 Labour and 6 Alliance, 11 of whom are women, 4 Maori and one a Pacific Islander. The Cabinet proper is made up of 20 ministers.
The New Zealand Executive Council as of 10 December 1999
(a) The Cabinet
| Rt. Hon. Helen Clark (Labour) Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage |
| Hon. John Anderton (Alliance), Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Industry and Regional Development |
| Hon. Dr Michael Cullen (Labour) Treasurer, Minister of Finance, Minister for Accident Insurance and Minister of Revenue |
| Hon. Steve Maharey (Labour) Minister of Social Services and Employment |
| Hon. Phil Goff (Labour) Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Minister of Justice |
| Hon. Annette King (Labour) Minister of Health |
| Hon. Sandra Lee (Alliance) Minister of Conservation, Minister of Local Government |
| Hon. Jim Sutton (Labour) Minister of Agriculture, Minister for Trade Negotiations |
| Hon. Trevor Mallard (Labour) Minister of Education, Minister of State Srvices, Minister for Sport, Fitness and Leisure |
| Hon. Pete Hodgson (Labour), Minister of Energy, Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Forestry, Minister of Research, Science and Technology, Minister for Crown Research Institutes |
| Hon. Margaret Wilson (Labour) Attorney-General, Minister of Labour, Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations |
| Hon. Dover Samuels (Labour) Minister of Maori Affairs |
| Hon. Matt Robson (Alliance) Minister of Corrections, Minister for Courts, Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control |
| Hon. Lianne Dalziel (Labour) Minister of Immigration, Minister for Senior Ciizens |
| Hon. George Hawkins (Labour) Minister of Police, Minister of Civil Defence, Minister for Zethnic Affairs |
| Hon. Mark Burton (Labour) Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister for SOEs, Minister of Tourism, Minister of Veterans’ Affairs |
| Hon. Paul Swain (Labour) Minister of Commerce, Minister of Communications, Minister for Information Technology, Minister for Land Information, Minister of Statistics |
| Hon. Marian Hobbs (Labour) Minister for the Environment, Minister for Biosecurity, Minister of Broadcasting |
| Hon. Mark Gosche(Labour) Minister of Transport, Minister of Housing, Minister of Pacific Island Affairs |
| Hon. Laila Harré (Alliance) Minister of Women’s affairs, Minister of youth Affairs |
(b) Ministers not in the Cabinet
| Hon. Judith Tizard (Labour) Minister of State |
| Hon. Ruth Dyson (Labour) Minister of State |
| Hon. Tariana Turia (Labour) Minister of State |
| Hon. Phillida Bunkle(Alliance) Minister of Customs, Minister of Consumer Affairs |
| Hon. Parekura Horomia (Labour) Minister of State |
| John Wright (Alliance) Parliamentary Under-Secretary |
Source: http://www.executive.govt.nz/minister/index.html
An overview of the main New Zealand political parties from left to right
The total number of valid party votes was: 2,065,494;
the total number of valid electoral votes was: 2,047,473.
| Party | Leader | |
| Alliance
7.74% of all party votes 6.90% of all electoral votes 1 electorate MP 9 list MPs |
A coalition of three minor left-wing parties (New Labour, Mana Motohake e Aotearoa/NZ Self-Government Party [Maori], and the New Zealand Democratic Party), it is now effectively acting as one party. It is currently the junior partner in the minority coalition government that took over from National on 10 December 1999. It is regarded as the most left-leaning party in New Zealand. | John Anderton (Deputy Prime Minister) |
| Green Party of Aotearoa
5.16% of all party votes 4.21% of all electorate votes 1 electorate MP 6 list MPs |
Used to be part of the Alliance,
from which they split in time for standing as a separate party in the 1999
election.
|
Jeanette Fitzsimons |
| Labour (NZLP)
38.74% of all party votes 41.75% of all electorate votes 41 electorate MPs 8 list MPs |
Founded in 1916, it first came to power in 1935 and ruled from December 1935 to Dec. 1949. During its 14 years in office it introduced important social and economic legislation, including social security, a 40-hour workweek, a large-scale public-works programme, a minimum wage and compulsory trade unionism. It ruled New Zealand again from Dec. 1957 to Dec. 1960, from Dec. 1972 to Dec. 1975, and from July 1984 to November 1990. During its last period in offce, it restructured and deregulated the economy in a series of market-oriented reforms, moving to the centre in the process. It also enacted anti-nuclear legislation in 1986, which led to New Zealand being suspended from ANZUS, the security pact signed in 1951 by Australia, New Zealand and the US. | Helen Clark (Prime Minister) |
| New Zealand First (NZF)
4.26% of all party votes 4.19% of all electorate votes 1 electorate MP 4 list MPs |
Formed in 1993 after its current leader broke away from National.. It won two seats in 1993 and 17 in 1996, when it held the balance of power and went into coalition with National. The Coalition collapsed when Peters was sacked by the then National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley in August 1998. NZ First, which bills itself as a centre party, has pedged to support the incumbent centre-left coalition government on certain issues, case-by-case. | Winston Peters
(Deputy Prime Minister from Dec. 1996 to Aug. 1998) |
| National Party (NP)
30.50% of all party votes 31.32% of all electorate votes 22 electorate MPs 17 list MPs |
The New Zealand National party was founded in 1936, when the rural-based Reform party and the mainly urban Liberal party merged to offer an alternative to the socialist Labour government. This conservative party ruled from Dec. 1949 to Dec. 1957, from Dec. 1960 to Dec. 1972, from December 1975 to July 1984 and from Nov. 1990 to Nov. 1999. As a result, the National party was for most of the 20th century considered "the natural party of government." In 1993 it only scraped back into office with a majority of 2 in the 99-seat Parliament. In 1996, it had to agree a coalition with NZF, after nine weeks of negotiations. In December 1997, the incumbent prime minister, Jim Bolger, was replaced in a party room coup as Leader and PM by Jenny Shipley who sacked her NZF deputy in August 1998, leaving National to depend on the support of fickle minor parties and independent MPs. It lost the 1999 election after nine years of unpopular economic reforms and broken election promises. This centre-right party now faces an uphill task of rebuilding in the opposition wilderness. | Jenny Shipley
(Prime Minister from Dec. 1997 to Nov. 1999) |
| United New Zealand (UNZ)
(New Zealand’s Liberal party) 0.54% of all party votes 1.10% of all electorate votes 1 electorate MP |
It was formed before the 1996 general election by seven National and Labour MPs hoping to develop a centrist party that would become the natural coalition partner for either of the parties they had broken away from. Its leader, a former Labour MP, is currently its only MP. | Peter Dunne |
| ACT New Zealand (ACT)
7.04% of all party votes 4.52% of all electorate votes 9 list MPs |
ACT originated in the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers in the early 1990s. Its first leader was a former Labour finance minister. Its creed is best summed up in its advocacy of the overriding right of the individual. Its right-wing economic policies would have made it the natural coalition partner for the National party if the latter had been in a position to form the government in 1999. It has 9 list MPs but is the only party represented in Parliament that did not achieve a single electorate seat. ACT may be regarded as the furthest right-wing of the main parties: while not openly racist, it campaigned on an anti-Maori campaign in 1999 (which must have touched a chord in some disaffected blue-collar and rural New Zealanders) and its leader has said that he is determined to push his "one law for all" stance hard. | Richard Prebble |
| Future New Zealand (FNZ)
1.12% of all party votes 0.94% of all electorate votes |
Future New Zealand, the former Christian Democrats, defends traditional Christian values. It fought the 1996 general election in coalition with Christian Heritage under the banner "Christian Coalition" in the hope of making it over the 5 percent threshold but on the understanding that the two parties would split after the election. They went their separate ways in 1999. | Anthony Walton |
| Christian Heritage Party (CHP)
2.38% of all party votes 2.19 of all electorate votes |
This party tends to defend traditional Christian values as espoused by fundamentalist churches. Its right-wing stance and stong moral conservatism place it well to the right of its rival, Future New Zealand. Some of its policies, however, are curiously similar to those of the Alliance: it would bring back tariffs to create full employment and forbid foreigners to own land in New Zealand. | Rev. Graham Gapill |
| Prime Minister | Party | Period in office |
| Sir Robert D. Muldoon | National | Dec. 1975 - July 1984 |
| David R. Lange | Labour | July 1984 - Aug. 1989 |
| Geoffrey Palmer | Labour | Aug. 1989 - Sept. 1990 |
| Michael Moore | Labour | Sept. 1990 - Nov. 1990 |
| James B. Bolger | National* | Nov. 1990 - Dec. 1997 |
| Jennifer Mary Shipley | National* | Dec. 1997 - Dec. 1999 |
| Helen Clark | Labour # | Dec. 1999 - |
# Labour-Alliance coalition.
Université de Nancy 2
Sources
Electoral Commission (Te Kaitiaka Taki Köwhiri).
Everything
you need to know about voting under MMP. Wellington, 1996.
Electoral Commission (Te Kaitiaka Taki Köwhiri).
The
New Zealand Electoral Compendium. Wellington, 2000. Pp. 185. [Includes
1999 election results]
Marks, Kathy. "New Zealand stages first all-woman poll
battle," The Independent, 23 November 1999.
Marks, Kathy. "New Zealand’s hippies savour a whiff of
power," The Independent, 25 November 1999.
Marks, Kathy. "New Zealand warms to Labour’s cool Clark,"
The
Independent, 28 November 1999.
"The 1999 election in New Zealand.": http://www.nzes.org/99_election.htm
and http://www.electionresults.govt.nz
The New Zealand Herald (Auckland): http://www.nzherald.co.nz
The Press (Christchurch): http://press.co.nz
New Zealand’s national TV: http://onenews.co.nz
Telecom New Zealand’s news channel: http://www.xtra.co.nz/homepage/news/main/0,1081,News%3ANew+Zealand+News%3A,00.html
Waikato University’s New Zealand Election Study (NZES):
http://www.nzes.org/
Nzine (a not-for-profit ezine sponsored bythe
New Zealand Internet Service Provider Plain Communications Ltd): http://www.nzine.co.nz/
Nagel, Jack. "New Zealanders choose PR." Center for Voting
and Democracy:
http://www.igc.org/cvd/reports/1993/nagel.html
Carruthers, Fiona. "A change in direction," Time South
Pacific, 6 December 1999.
Background notes on countries of the world: New Zealand
(10 October 1998 update): http://www.britannica.com/bcom/magazine/article/0,5744,265266,00.html
"New government’s ambitious programme" <
http://nzoom.com/onenews/default.htm> 22 December
1999.
7am.com’s New Zealand News Indexes: http://7am.com/wireidx/nzl/
http://www.mytravelguide.com/countries/new_zealand/home.asp?corridor=
23
May 2000)
For population statistics go to:
•Department
of Internal Affairs:
http://www.dia.govt.nz
•Population Association of New Zealand: http://www.massey.ac.nz/~NZSRDA/nzssorgs/panz/panz.htm
Poulation statistics from New Zealand Statistics: http://www.stats.govt.nz/domino/external/pasfull/pasfull.nsf/7cbdaf9dea00c1b94c2563ea001a5289/3e787d00458326594c2567d60079a014?OpenDocument#four
| ALMANAC
Area: 270,534 sq km (104,454 sq miles) Capital: Wellington. Population
Population density: 14.16 per sq km. Population distribution: At the time of the March 1996
Census:
Main cities (1996):
Mäori: At 30 June 1996, the estimated resident Mäori population [excluding those persons who have Mäori ancestry but do not identify themselves as Mäori] was 547,700 (14.75%). People with some Mäori ancestry made up about 16.25% of the estimated resident population of NZ.
|
| The New Zealand state
New Zealand is a realm, i.e. an independent monarchy sharing its sovereign with several other monarchies. It is a parliamentary democracy and although its head of state is a king or queen represented by a Governor-General, it is a de facto republic. New Zealand is a unitary state and its capital is Wellington. New Zealand has no written constitution in the usual sense of the term but the New Zealand Constitution Act 1986 “brings together in one act the most important statutory constitutional provisions and clarifies the rules relating to the governmental handover of power.” (New Zealand Yearbook 1999) New Zealand’s system of local government is largely independent of the central government, although the powers of local authorities are exclusively those conferred on them by Acts of Parliament. For local government purposes, the country is divided into 12 regions, each of which is administered by a democratically-elected regional council. The 12 regions are further divided into 74 territorial authorities (15 city councils, 58 district councils and the Chatham Islands council, all democratically-elected). [Local government elections are held on the second Saturday in October every third year.] The regional councils are responsible for a number of functions and duties that are best discharged over a wide area or which are most economically provided on a large scale. The territorial authorities provide all other services. [N.B. The city councils and a number of district councils are “unitary authorities,” i.e. provide all services in their area.] The 154 community boards within the 74 territorial authorities have very few powers and any powers they have are delegated to them by their territorial authority. |
| The New Zealand Executive
Executive authority in New Zealand is vested in the King or Queen of New Zealand (currently Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) represented by the Governor-General, who must act on the advice of the Executive Council (also known as the Ministry). The Executive Council is formally appointed by the Governor-General from members of a House of Representatives of 120 members, including at least 6 Mäori, selected by popular PR vote for a three-year term. As in all parliamentary democracies, the Ministry is made up of members of the political party (or parties) that have won the most seats in the three-yearly general election. Executive power is therefore exercised by New Zealand’s democratically elected government and it is only in the most extraordinary circumstances that the Governor-General can reject its advice and have reccourse to his “reserve power.” |
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