新西兰英语 518 Election Results

 　　As was expected, National won the most seats in the election and will form the government for the next three years. National won 48% of the party vote and 60 seats. The Prime Minister, John Key, plans to form a coalition¹ with ACT party MP John Banks and United Future MP Peter Dunne. This will give his party a majority. John Key also plans to talk to the three MPs from the Maori party. He would like their support too.

　　The Labour Party won only 27% of the party vote which gave them 34 seats. The Green Party was very pleased to win 11% of the vote and 13 seats. The big surprise was New Zealand First. The leader, Winston Peters, lost his seat in the 2008 election but this time his party has 7% of the vote and 8 seats. The Greens and New Zealand First do not have any electorate² seats but under MMP, if they have more than 5% of the party vote, they are entitled to their percentage of seats in Parliament. ACT and United Future both won an electorate seat but had only about 1% of the party vote so they do not get any more MPs.

　　These are temporary results. We have to wait two weeks for the final results. Special votes will be included at that time. Special votes are made by people who are not at home on election day. They can vote in another place. Votes also have to be checked. Some results are very close. In Christchurch Central electorate, for example, both the National and Labour candidates have exactly the same number of votes at the moment.

　　Vocabulary

　　A seat in Parliament means the person becomes a Member of Parliament – an MP.

　　For other vocabulary check November 21st 2011.

1 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

2 electorate   

n.全体选民；选区

参考例句：

• The government was responsible to the electorate.政府对全体选民负责。
• He has the backing of almost a quarter of the electorate.他得到了几乎1/4选民的支持。