New Zealand poised for weeks of political wrangling after knife-edge poll

New Zealand faced the prospect on Sunday (Nov 8) of weeks or even months of political wrangling after a knife-edge election that produced no clear winner.



Prime Minister Christopher Luxon declared his right-wing coalition has a mandate to form the country's next government - while conceding results remained too close to call definitively.



Preliminary results have his National party winning the most seats, giving them a very slim majority of just two if combined with their coalition partners, the populist NZ First and the libertarian ACT.



"New Zealanders have given us the biggest seats in parliament, forty-two seats as it stands today, and a pathway to form a government," Luxon told journalists on Sunday.



He said his National party had done well given the war in the Middle East and subsequent global fuel shock that has been widely blamed for New Zealand's economic difficulties.



Opposition Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has joked that while the country had spoken, "it may take us a little bit longer to figure out exactly what it is that you've said".



But the results show he has only a very narrow path to power for his left-wing grouping, which also includes the Green Party and the Maori party.