New Zealand election: Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party scores landslide win

[BUtterfield 8 41,818]

With all votes tallied, Ms Ardern's centre-left Labour Party won 49.1%, bringing a projected 64 seats and a rare outright parliamentary majority.

The opposition centre-right National Party won 26.8% in Saturday's poll - just 35 seats in the 120-seat assembly.

The poll was originally to be held in September but was postponed by a month after a renewed Covid-19 outbreak.

Ahead of Saturday's vote, more than a million people cast ballots in early polling, which opened on 3 October. 

New Zealanders were also asked to vote in two referendums alongside the general election.

The Electoral Commission's final tally also gave ACT New Zealand 8% of the vote (10 projected seats), the Greens 7.6% (10), the Maori Party 1% (1) and others 7.7% (0).

Ms Ardern, 40, told her supporters after the victory: "New Zealand has shown the Labour Party its greatest support in almost 50 years. We will not take your support for granted. And I can promise you we will be a party that governs for every New Zealander."

National Party (NAT) leader Judith Collins congratulated Ms Ardern and promised her party would be a "robust opposition". 

"Three years will be gone in the blink of an eye," she said, referring to the next scheduled election. "We will be back."

No party had managed to win an outright majority in New Zealand since it introduced a voting system known as Mixed Member Proportional representation (MMP) in 1996.

Ms Ardern, who dubbed the poll "the Covid election", pledged to instil more climate-friendly policies, boost funding for disadvantaged schools and raise income taxes on top earners.

This was never going to be a nail-biting election. Opinion polls had comfortably put Ms Ardern on course to win a second term. The results have confirmed what everyone already knew.

The real question was how big Jacinda Ardern and her party were going to win and by anyone's standard this is a remarkable victory.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54519628

[xoxo Craig 55,649]

Happy for New Zealand. Her strength really showed this year dealing with so many issues, including the obvious pandemic. I'm really envious of people who live in New Zealand.

Hopefully Scotland can break free from the UK so that we can go in a similar path

[Reid LePage 5,029]

Judith saying "my husband is samoan, so talofa" is really what made people turn their backs on her, so who's really surprised!

[Fatigay 21,211]

Worth noting that the Centre-right (National) party actually lost 21 seats (36 remaining), and the populist-conservative (NZ First) lost ALL 9 seats (0 remaining!). A big win for the Left, in a world where the Right is getting more popular

[PrinceGaga 7,644]

The most perfect election result I’ve seen in my lifetime. These are Adele numbers 

[Eighteen 5,430]

one can only hope that (if america doesn't crash and burn in 2 weeks) the far left in the USA one day take a majority!