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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: Opposition speaks of an outstanding victory
Photo: Mark Baker / AP
In the parliamentary elections in New Zealand a clear victory for the incumbent Labor Party with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is on the horizon.
After counting more than 50 percent of the votes, the party even got an absolute majority of 65 of the 120 seats.
If this is confirmed, Labor could continue to govern without a coalition with the Greens.
The "Green Party" also posted profits.
A commentator on New Zealand television spoke of a "considerable left slide".
The 40-year-old Ardern is expected to have achieved the highest election victory to date under the current electoral system, wrote the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
Ardern's fiercest opponent in the election was Judith Collins from the conservative National Party, which has posted significant losses and, according to the preliminary results, only has about 35 seats.
The opposition recognized the victory of the ruling party.
Collins congratulated Ardern on New Zealand TV and spoke of an "outstanding" result for the Labor Party.
Ardern has ruled a coalition of Labor, the Greens and the small populist party New Zealand First, which is known for its anti-immigrant positions.
Three years ago the party had tipped the scales and surprisingly brought Ardern into office.
Now she clearly lost.
More than half of the approximately 3.5 million eligible voters have already cast their votes before the parliamentary elections on Saturday.
Almost two million ballot papers had been received by Friday, said the election commission.
Eligible voters also voted in two referendums on the legalization of cannabis as a recreational drug and the legalization of euthanasia.
The results of these polls are not to be published until the end of October.
The politician Ardern, also known abroad for her successful crisis management, has been in office since 2017.
She has received a lot of recognition mainly for her handling of the Christchurch attacks, in which a right-wing extremist from Australia shot 51 Muslims last year, and for her successful fight against the corona pandemic.
So far, the Pacific state has come through the pandemic very lightly and recently declared for the second time that it had the virus under control.
With a population of around five million, New Zealand has so far only recorded 25 deaths related to the novel virus.
In the meantime, the country has largely returned to normalcy.
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nil / dpa / AFP