Absentee votes give Bolger slim majority

NEW ZEALAND'S conservative National Party (NP) government has clung on to power with an overall majority of one seat after the counting of absentee votes following the cliffhanger general election on 6 November.

After 11 days of political limbo, the NP recaptured one of the crucial marginal constituencies won by the main opposition Labour Party on election night, to finish with 50 seats in the new 99-seat parliament. Labour holds 45, the NZ Alliance two and the New Zealand First party two.

The stock market, nervous about the prospect of a hung parliament, recovered strongly on yesterday's news and the New Zealand dollar strengthened.

Although the NP has to appoint a Speaker, which will leave the parliament tied, the Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, predicted that he would govern for a full three-year term.

Few commentators share his confidence. The critical winning seat, which turned the government's election-night deficit of one into the narrowest overall majority, was held by only 52 votes and Labour seems certain to demand a recount.

In addition, Mr Bolger will have to deal with two or three maverick backbenchers. One, Michael Laws, a close friend of the former NP cabinet minister Winston Peters, who leads New Zealand First, has already warned that he will resign if the government tries to pass legislation he sees as contrary to his constituents' interests.

Mr Laws bitterly opposed the NP's extreme-right policies, including cutting social welfare benefits, in the last parliament and crossed the floor of the House to vote against his government.

Mr Bolger demonstrated his confidence by announcing that he would leave tomorrow to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum in Seattle, saying he would go to the Governor-General to obtain his warrant to form a government on his return next Tuesday. He will then consider the questions of naming a Speaker and a new cabinet.

Although the NP is back in power, the election result, which wiped out its record majority, is seen as ending its right-wing programme of social and economic reform. Mr Bolger said today he did not envisage any further 'significant legislation of a controversial nature'.

He vowed, however, that there would be no reversal of past reform. This is not in line with the agenda of all three opposition parties, which are committed to restoring the welfare state the NP has, in its own words, 'redesigned'.

Key figures in the new political environment will be the Speaker, the Alliance leader, Jim Anderton (a former Labour MP) and Mr Peters.

Mr Anderton and Mr Peters will, with Labour, want to keep pressure on the NP to modify its policies, but with the 1996 election due to be fought under new rules of proportional representation that will increase the numbers of their MPs, they will not want to bring down the government before time.

(Photograph omitted)