Posted on 09/18/2005 11:16:30 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
NEW Zealand's caretaker Prime Minister Helen Clark returned to the capital Wellington today for negotiations with minor parties to form a government after the weekend's stalemate election result.
The nation faces two weeks of political limbo before more than 200,000 special votes are counted but Ms Clark said she wants to put arrangements in place so a government can be formed quickly after full results emerge on October 1.
Ms Clark, who has been Prime Minister since 1999, said she would hold "exploratory talks" with the minor parties, but this would be followed by a quiet period leading up to the release of the final results.
She said on national radio the political parties would "need to be in a position to move reasonably expeditiously" after October 1 to allow parliament to be recalled as required by late October or early November.
Ms Clark's centre-left Labour Party has the best chance to form a government based on provisional results released Saturday, with 40.7 per cent of the vote or 50 seats.
Under New Zealand's complex mixed member proportional electoral system, there are likely to be 122 seats in the new parliament.
But the centre-right National Party, led by Don Brash, was within a whisker of Labour, with 39.6 per cent of the vote, which translates into 49 seats.
The role of six minor parties, with a total of 23 seats between them, is crucial. The Green Party with six seats and Progressives with one will gravitate to Labour.
New Zealand First, led by veteran populist politician Winston Peters, has seven seats and has said it will support the party with the most seats.
The Maori Party will also be a crucial player with four seats. It was formed only last year in protest against the Labour government's decision to legislate to prevent indigenous groups launching court claims for foreshore land areas.
Despite bitterness over the Labour government's actions, the Maori Party is even less likely to support National, which campaigned on promises to abolish seats reserved for Maori and for the ending of other affirmative action programmes for the indigenous people.
Dr Brash conceded today that Labour had a "slightly better chance than we do" of forming a government but added it would be very difficult for Labour to achieve a clear majority in parliament.
She's a socialist, can't see the center from her roost.
The only thing I want to say is a four letter swear word starting with "s", but I'm a Christian so this behaviour does not fit myself as a born again child of God.
The only hope is that the Left won't get over half of the seats and need to depend on Winston Peters' New Zealand First for confidence and supply. As the parties in the pact they eat each other out we on the conservative side could be poised in a position to win - Michael Bassett, a 1980s pro-reform Labour minister, asserts that we will be back in the polls sooner than later as constitutionally we are in a very unstable condition.
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