Qiulae Wong’s Opportunity Party could play a kingmaker role in New Zealand’s next government after a knife-edge vote in which neither of the country’s main parties won enough seats to govern alone.
Speaking outside parliament, she said her win represented a sea change after a decade of rising populism and extremism worldwide.
“I think we are seeing a push globally for more pragmatic politics,” she said.
“We’ve seen that populism doesn’t deliver results. It is paper thin, it doesn’t have substance around taking countries forward. Nearly 150,000 New Zealanders that have voted for Opportunity want to see that more pragmatic approach to politics.”
New Zealand now faces weeks of political wrangling after results on Sunday showed no clear winner.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has declared his right-wing coalition secured a mandate to form the next government – while conceding results remained too close to call definitively.
Preliminary results have his National Party winning the most seats, giving them a slim majority if combined with their coalition partners, the populist NZ First and the libertarian ACT.
Luxon will run a caretaker government until the final votes are announced on November 27.
Wong has said she will work with whichever party has the largest number of seats – but insisted that her party’s “bottom lines” on climate change action, cost of living and cleaning up politics are non-negotiable.
“We are coming to that table constructively with pragmatism and some bold ideas,” she said Monday.
“If they want to work with us and come to the table with the same kind of attitude, then that’s great.” (AFP)
