NZ deadlock ‘may last for three weeks’

NEW Zealand Prime Minister Bill English said yesterday that he expects two or three weeks of “tense” negotiations with maverick MP Winston Peters to break the country’s general election deadlock.

Peters emerged as kingmaker in Saturday’s election after English’s conservative National Party and the Labour opposition led by Jacinda Ardern both failed to win an outright majority.

English was expected to struggle amid the “Jacinda-mania” hype surrounding the charismatic young opposition leader, but ended up outpolling her by 46.0 percent to 35.8.

He said the fact that National finished just short of a majority put the party in a “pretty good” position to strike a deal with Peters, a populist 72-year-old political veteran. “We now have the task of building on that clear indication from voters to make progress in a coherent, stable government”

English’s message of stability resonated with voters late in the campaign as he attacked the fiscal credibility of Ardern, 37, who became Labour leader just seven weeks before the election.

The result was 58 seats for National, three short of the 61 needed to win an outright majority. Labour took 45, rising to 52 if seats of its close ally the Greens are included. It leaves both English and Ardern needing the nine seats held by Peters’s New Zealand First party to reach the majority required to form government.