WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Sunday his right-wing coalition had a path back to office, while conceding the vote was too close to call definitively and compromise would be needed after a hard-fought campaign dominated by cost of living issues.
Neither Luxon’s National Party nor the centre-left Labour won enough seats in parliament to form a government without minor parties in an election that put the two main parties neck and neck at 29pc just a few thousand votesseparating them.
Preliminary results had National winning the most seats, which would give them a very slim majority of just two if combined with coalition partners the populist NZ First and the libertarian ACT.
‘National is once again the largest party in parliament, and we have a pathway to forming the next government,’ Luxon said to chants of ‘three more years’. ‘But right now it is too close to call.’ He said he would run a caretaker government until the final votes were tallied on Nov 27.-AFP