新西蘭英語(yǔ) 64 Small Political Parties
It is not just the American Presidential elections in early November. Four days after the Americans have chosen their new President, we will vote but we cannot choose our leader. We can only vote for one person in our local area, our electorate, and for one party. If that party wins the majority of votes, that party becomes the government and their leader becomes our Prime Minister. There are 120 seats in Parliament, so one party needs 61 MPs to have a majority.
However, under MMP, usually no party gets 61 seats. Instead, the party with the most seats needs the support of a smaller party so that together they have a majority. This is called a coalition where both parties agree to work together. However, small parties have different policies and they may not be happy in a coalition with National or Labour. This weekend, the Maori Party talked about the problems of a coalition with National. One problem is that National wants to get rid of the seven Maori seats in Parliament. Only Maori can vote in the Maori electorates. Maori seats were first established in 1868 to make sure that Maori people were represented in Parliament but today there are 15 other Maori MPs who are not from Maori electorates. National says this means that Maori seats are not necessary any more. The Maori party disagrees.
National will not work with the New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters. The Greens have not yet said whether they will support Labour or National. Up till now, they have supported Labour. The Green Party is the only small party which is likely to get more than 5% of the vote. This would give them more MPs from their Party list. ACT will join a National coalition but if ACT only wins one seat, that will not help National much. The other small parties will probably not have enough MPs either.
Every vote is important. Your vote could make a difference.
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