WELLINGTON — New Zealand's election night ended without a winner on Saturday, November 7, after the Electoral Commission's preliminary count reached 100 percent with the two main parties separated by a fraction of a percent. Labour took 29.36 percent of the party vote to National's 29.21 percent, followed by the Greens on 13.30 percent, ACT on 10.92 percent, New Zealand First on 9.78 percent, the Opportunity Party on 5.96 percent and Te Pāti Māori on 0.57 percent, according to the Commission's preliminary results reported by BBC News.

Source: BBC News live coverage (Nov 7)

Seats tell a different story from the party vote. On the preliminary results, National is the largest party in parliament, and the right-wing grouping of National, ACT and New Zealand First holds a razor-thin majority with 67 seats, while the left-wing grouping of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori holds 56, DPA reported. Because National and Te Pāti Māori won more electorate seats than their party-vote shares, parliament expands to 130 seats on the preliminary count, making 66 the majority line. At the 95 percent count, about 3,500 votes separated National and Labour nationwide.

Source: DPA via Ekkow (Nov 7)

The completed count closes a night that stayed on a knife edge — at 91 percent counted, a single seat separated the two blocs. Read the earlier count: New Zealand election at 91 percent, one seat between the blocs

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, seeking a second term for his National-led coalition, claimed the stronger position without claiming victory. 'National is once again the largest party in parliament and we have a pathway to forming the next government,' he told supporters at National's headquarters in Auckland. 'But I have to tell you right now it is too close to call.' Labour leader Chris Hipkins's bloc appeared to have fallen short of a majority on the preliminary numbers.

Why nobody can declare a winner yet

Under New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, voters cast both a party vote and an electorate vote, and the preliminary count does not include special votes — ballots cast outside a voter's own electorate, including from overseas — which will be counted over the next three weeks and have historically tended to favour the left. The Electoral Commission will declare the official result on November 27, and coalition negotiations, which the parties say can begin now, may run beyond that date. Early voting had already drawn nearly 1.7 million of the country's 3.8 million eligible voters by Thursday, after advance voting opened on October 26.

The campaign was dominated by the cost of living, the economy, healthcare and housing. Andrew Geddis, a professor of law at the University of Otago, noted that the combined vote for the two major parties — about 60 percent — is historically low, a sign of how far support has fragmented. The centrist Opportunity Party crossed the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament for the first time and is positioned as a possible kingmaker: its leader, Qiulae Wong, said the party would prioritise talking to whichever party wins the most seats.

What happens next

Coalition talks come first, with the Opportunity Party's intentions and New Zealand First's price for support the two unknowns that can move the final arithmetic. Then the special votes are counted, the official result is declared on November 27, and only then will New Zealand know whether Luxon returns for a second term or Hipkins assembles a government of his own.