New Zealand election hangs in the balance as minor parties surge

New Zealand is bracing for weeks of political horse-trading after an election that handed nobody a clean win. Preliminary results put Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's National Party on 42 seats, the largest single bloc, but a coalition with NZ First (12 seats) and ACT (13) scrapes together a majority of just two. Luxon told journalists Sunday that his side had the numbers and a pathway to govern. He'll run a caretaker government until the final count lands on November 27.

That count isn't over. Nearly 400,000 special votes still need to be tallied, including around 100,000 cast overseas or by voters who live outside their local electorate. Those ballots have historically leaned left, so Labour or the Greens could pick up an extra seat or two at the right bloc's expense. Luxon shrugged off the wait, saying everyone is sick of politics and should take three weeks off. Opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins joked that the country has spoken, but it might take a while to work out what it actually said.

The night belonged to the small players. The upstart centrist Opportunity Party snagged seven seats, putting it in position as a possible kingmaker. Luxon called needing them unlikely but said he's willing to work with leader Qiulae Wong where they agree, and talked up deeper cross-party collaboration. Behind National, Labour sits on 36 seats, the Greens on 16, ACT on 13, NZ First on 12 and Te Pati Maori on five. Under New Zealand's mixed-member proportional system, voters tick both a party list and a local candidate, which is how the minors piled up seats.

What drove voters to the booths was money. New Zealanders are straining to make ends meet, with basic goods stubbornly expensive and unemployment at its highest in more than a decade. Luxon argued his party performed well given the Middle East war and the global fuel shock widely blamed for the country's economic slump. Hipkins, meanwhile, faces a very narrow route back to power for his left-leaning grouping of Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori.

On the streets of Wellington, voters told AFP the cost of living was front of mind when they voted. Support worker Rahul Jain, 33, said he wants the next government to bring prices down, noting everything has gone up. Mary Scott, who works in lending operations, said politicians should remember ordinary people and make policies that ask the wealthy to pay a bit more.

Luxon isn't waiting on the specials to claim momentum. He said National delivered 42 seats and a mandate, and that he intends to govern with his existing partners. Whether that two-seat cushion survives November 27 is the question now hanging over Wellington.