New Zealanders won’t know for weeks who won the election as neither side secures clear victory– abcnews.com

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealanders will wait for weeks to discover who will lead the country after Saturday’s election failed to deliver a decisive win for the right or the left, leaving fraught negotiations for a wafer-thin governing majority the only apparent path to victory for either side.

The tightest vote in years delivered a stinging rebuke to the major parties which have long dominated New Zealand politics, Christopher Luxon’s center-right National party and center-left Labour led by Chris Hipkins, as voters threw more support behind minor parties on the ideological flanks than before. On Saturday’s numbers, minor parties would enter negotiations for a governing deal with leverage to extract deeper policy concessions from a weakened National or Labour.

The near-deadlock was partly produced because voters, apparently weary of New Zealand’s economic woes and apathetic about both Luxon and Hipkins, chose to propel a new entrant group to Parliament for the first time in years. Opportunity, led by 38-year-old business consultant and political newcomer Qiulae Wong, is unaligned with either bloc and Wong has said she could work with either side to form a government.

Wong’s pledges of evidence-based centrism and an end to partisan bickering had on Saturday’s results secured seven seats for Opportunity — enough to frustrate both left and right in a simple path to power. It was a staggering ascension for a party that made three failed attempts at Parliament before Wong became leader less than a year ago.