Wellington, New Zealand – Prime Minister Helen Clark courted coalition partners today after narrowly winning an election that featured a rival bid to strip special rights from indigenous Maori and dismantle nuclear-free laws in favor of stronger U.S. trade ties.
Clark’s ruling Labour Party won 50 seats in the 122-seat parliament, forcing her to form a coalition government. The main opposition National Party was close behind with 49 seats in the poll Saturday.
The 55-year-old Clark will become the first Labour leader since World War II to win three terms if she can agree to deals with small parties to support her in government.
She told National Radio she expects to talk with “a range of people” over the next few days and “to keep open phone lines.”
“You are looking at Labour working with a range of small parties to get something that is sustainable, durable and can keep New Zealand growing,” she said.
Clark said she wanted to “heal wounds” in New Zealand opened during a divisive campaign dominated by National leader Don Brash’s pledge to cut special programs aimed at the country’s impoverished Maori minority.
Brash pledged to scrap seven seats reserved for Maori lawmakers in the Parliament and abolish affirmative action and welfare policies aimed at the largely impoverished minority, programs he condemned as “state- sponsored separatism.” The new Maori Party, with four lawmakers, was seen by commentators as holding a key clutch of seats that might prevent National taking power.
Brash told National Radio that “there is still a way to go yet before the victory can be determined” but that without Maori Party votes, a National-led coalition government “doesn’t appear to be” possible, “I acknowledge that.” “There are some differences between the Maori Party and the National Party that would seem to be absolutely insuperable,” he said.
Brash also had said during campaigning that he would be prepared to sacrifice New Zealand’s 20-year-old nuclear-free laws if it would ease negotiations on a free trade deal with Washington.
New Zealand’s laws banning nuclear weapons and nuclear- powered vessels have strained relations between Washington and Wellington since they were enacted in 1985.
Since coming to power in 1999, Clark has presided over a booming economy, helped by strong prices for agricultural exports and a surge in tourism. Unemployment is at a 30-year low.
