Sunday, October 26, 2008

Labour Narrows the Gap - Colmar Brunton Poll on New Zealand General Election

The latest TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll suggests Labour is closing the gap on National with less than a fortnight to go till the General Election in New Zealand.

National dropped 3 percent to 47 percent support in the latest poll while Labour dropped 1 to 35 percent - a gap of 12 percent.

But the real gap closer is the surge in support for the Greens - up 3 to 8 percent (a level mirrored in other recent polls) and the Maori Party, up 1 to 3 percent but the latter has a strong chance of securing most of the 7 Maori electorate seats. The Colmar-Brunton polls assumes the Maori Party will take four of those seats. ACT support was unchanged on 2 percent, while NZ First moved up 1 to 3 percent.

Based on these poll results, and United Future's declaration yesterday that it will support National to form a government after the election, National could govern with 59 seats + 3 ACT + 1 United Future in a 122 seat Parliament.

A Labour-led coalition of 44 seats + 10 Greens + 1 Progressive = 55, would leave Labour needing the 4 or more Maori Party seats and possibly 1 NZ First seat (Winston Peters) but still short of a majority.

But it would take only a swing of 2-3 percent towards Labour and its support parties for a coalition to be possible.

An election on a knife edge, indeed. And one in which overseas Kiwi votes might count more than ever in affecting the result. Soooooooooooo - GET OUT THE VOTE, whoever you decide to vote for!

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