Christoper Luxon, the leader of the National Party, in Morrinsville, New Zealand, on October 13, 2023 (Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)
Christopher Luxon’s National Party received 39.1 percent of the vote and will form a coalition with the liberal ACT Party
In the elections for the new New Zealand parliament, the center-right party, which was favored in the polls, won. With more than 96 percent of ballots counted, the National Party, the main center-right party, received 39.1 percent of the vote. Instead, the Labor Party, which has governed the country alone for the past six years, first with Jacinda Ardern and then with current Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, remained at 26.7 percent.
With this result, New Zealand will have the government that has already been considered the most right-wing government for decades: the new Prime Minister will be Christopher Luxon, leader of the National Party, who has already announced that he will form a government coalition with ACT, a small party with a liberal orientation, which has 9 percent who received votes.
Luxon is 53 years old and the former CEO of national airline Air New Zealand. He was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament in 2020.
In the previous general election in October 2020, Labor won by a landslide, receiving almost 50 percent of the vote, a historic result that was also influenced by the management of the coronavirus epidemic and is considered one of the best in the world. However, there is now a sense of “fatigue and frustration” among New Zealanders, linked to, among other things, inflation and the rise in mortgage rates.
Since taking office in January, Hipkins has struggled to maintain support for the Labor Party, which had already begun to decline during Ardern’s second term. In addition to economic issues, the election campaign also addressed rising crime in the country and the inequalities between non-Maori and Maori, who make up over 16 percent of the population.
Thanks to his party’s good showing, Luxon can govern without allying with New Zealand First, a conservative, nationalist and populist party that won 6.5 percent of the vote. The third party that received the most votes was the Greens with 10.7.
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