Jacinda Ardern became New Zealand's third female Prime Minister, and Winston Peters again became Deputy Prime Minister, a role he had first held in 1996–98. This ended nine years under the National Party Government. Ardern became Prime Minister after the Labour Party agreed to create a coalition with Peters's New Zealand First party, thus making him Deputy Prime Minister. Their shared votes were larger than that of English, thus defeating him.
Voters elected 120 members to the House of Representatives under New Zealand's mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system, a system in which 71 members were elected from single-member electorates and 49 members were elected from closed party lists.
Around 3.57 million people were registered to vote in the election, with 2.63 million (79.8%) turning out. Advance voting proved popular, with 1.24 million votes cast before election day, more than the previous two elections combined.
The centre-right National Party, led by Prime Minister Bill English, had governed since 2008 in a minority government. It was the first election for English as incumbent Prime Minister, having replaced John Key on 12 December 2016 and the first since 1975 where both major parties had leadership changes. The main opposition parties to the National government were Labour (the official opposition), led by Jacinda Ardern, the Green Party, and New Zealand First.
Winston Peters
Winston Raymond Peters (born 11 April 1945) is a New Zealand politician. He was the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2020. He served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1996 to 1998. He serves under a coalition government alongside Jacinda Ardern upon the 2017 election.
Peters led the populist New Zealand First party since 1993. He was a Member of Parliament from 2011 to 2020, having served from 1979 to 1981 and 1984 to 2008.
James Shaw
James Peter Edward Shaw (born 6 May 1973) is a New Zealand politician. He is the leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. In October 2017 he became the Minister outside Cabinet for Statistics and Climate Change Issues. Following Metiria Turei's resignation in August 2017, Shaw became the Green Party's only leader for the 2017 general election.
David Seymour
David Breen Seymour (born 24 June 1983) is a New Zealand politician. He is the Epsom electorate MP, and leader of ACT New Zealand. Seymour worked in public policy in Canada.
In November 2015, Seymour was named the Trans Tasman 2015 Politician Of The Year.
Seymour appeared on the seventh series of Dancing with the Stars.
Marama Fox
Marama Kahu Fox is a New Zealand politician. She was elected to the New Zealand parliament at the 2014 general election as a representative of the Māori Party.
Following her election to parliament, she was named Māori Party co-leader alongside Te Ururoa Flavell, replacing party founder Tariana Turia.
In the 2017 general election, Fox lost her seat and her party won no seats in the election.
2020 New Zealand general election
The 2020 New Zealand general election was held after the currently elected 52nd New Zealand Parliament is dissolved or expires. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the election date as Saturday 17 October 2020.
In the last election, Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, formed a minority coalition government with the New Zealand First party.
Incumbent Prime Minister Ardern was re-elected with a Labour landslide victory.
Electorate boundaries for the next election are due to be redrawn in 2019, after the 2018 census and Māori electoral option. This means that unless a snap election is called before 2019, the next general election will be the first to use boundaries based on the 2018 census.
Simon Bridges
Simon Joseph Bridges (born October 1976) is a New Zealand politician and lawyer. He was the Leader of the New Zealand National Party and Leader of the Opposition from 27 February 2018 to 22 May 2020. He has been the Member of Parliament for Tauranga since 2008.
Bridges has served in several Cabinet portfolios, including Minister of Transport (2014–2017), Minister of Economic Development (2016–2017) and Leader of the House (2017).
He is the first person with Māori ancestry to serve as leader of the National Party, and the first to lead a major party in New Zealand.
On 22 May 2020, following poor polling for the party, Bridges was challenged for the party leadership and replaced by Todd Muller. He would go onto retiring from the leadership of the party less than two months later.
1994 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak
The 1994 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak happened on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1994. This was the third tornado outbreak in the United States to happen on a Palm Sunday. 40 people were killed in this outbreak, and 491 were injured.
The Storm Prediction Center issued a warning on March 26 saying the risk of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes from the Southeast to the Mid-Atlantic.
On the morning of March 27, a moderate risk was given for Alabama. By 9:00 a.m., thunderstorms began to develop. At 9:18 a.m., a tornado watch was issued for eastern Mississippi and northern Alabama. Tornado warnings were issued at 11:00 a.m. CST. At 11:39 a.m., a tornado struck the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama, killing 22 people, including the groom's 4-year-old daughter.
At noon EST, a PDS tornado watch was announced for northern Georgia. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes entered Georgia by 12:42 p.m. EST and continued throughout the afternoon. The Storm Prediction Center announced a tornado watch for eastern Louisiana and central Mississippi. However, no tornadoes touched down on March 27. A tornado watch was also announced in the Carolinas. Tornadoes hit this area through the afternoon, including an F3 in Georgia and South Carolina, injuring 12. Another tornado injured 13 in North and South Carolina.
Tornadoes continued to hit Alabama between 4:00 and 5:30 p.m. CST, damaging a high school. A funnel cloud was seen at 6:00 p.m. CST. The storm had winds up to 60 mph.
The final tornado struck Greenville County, South Carolina at midnight on March 28. The NWS offices in Birmingham, Atlanta, and Athens did not stop issuing warnings until early in the morning on March 28.
Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden KG CH PC DL (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R.A. Butler or by his initials as "Rab" Butler, was a Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1962 to 1963 for one year.
Butler died of colon cancer on 8 March 1982 at Great Yeldham, Essex.
2016 Australian federal election
The 2016 Australian federal election was an election held on Saturday 2 July to elect all 226 members of the 45th Parliament of Australia. It lasted eight weeks. It was the first under a new voting system for the Senate that replaced group voting tickets with optional preferential voting. Incumbent Malcolm Turnbull was narrowly re-elected by forming a coalition government with other smaller parties.
After a week of vote counting, no party had won enough seats in the House of Representatives to form a majority government. Neither the Liberal/National Coalition's incumbent Turnbull Government nor the Australian Labor Party's Shorten Opposition were in a position to claim victory. Turnbull talked with the crossbench. He won a confidence and supply support from Bob Katter, Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan in the event of a hung parliament and resulting minority government. On 10 July, Shorten conceded defeat. Turnbull claimed victory later that day.
The election is the closest federal majority result since 1961, the ABC declared on 11 July that the Coalition could form a one-seat majority government.
Richard Di Natale