Wairarapa Green Party candidate and former Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown says there is only a “slim possibility” she’ll make it into Parliament.
Wade-Brown lost in her local Wairarapa electorate, and the Greens will need to gain two further seats after special votes are counted for her to get in.
If she is elected via the Green’s list, it could make her the third Wairarapa-based MP heading to Parliament.
National’s Mike Butterick won the seat from Labour as the country swung back to blue on election night, while Kieran McAnulty looks likely to remain in Parliament as a Labour list MP.
Final results, including the number of list MPs, are expected to be known on November 3.
Wade-Brown said while it’s unlikely she will get in, she is happy the party vote has increased in the region, which was the focus of her campaign.
She has moved down from 15th to 16th on the party list, due to Tamatha Paul [who was not on the list] winning Wellington Central on Saturday.
About 567,000 special votes – or more than 20 per cent of the total votes cast – still need to be counted, including an estimated 80,000 overseas and dictation votes.
It is possible the Greens will pick up at least one more MP to add to the 14 MPs who will be entering the next Parliament on current results.
Wade-Brown said she is pleased the Greens won three electorate seats on Saturday, but “sad” with the overall election outcome.
As well as Wellington Central, the party also picked up Wellington’s Rongotai from Labour and held on to Auckland Central for a second term.
She thinks it is unlikely the Greens will get two more MPs on the special votes, which is what it would take for her to become a list MP.
“I hope Kahurangi [Carter, 15th on the list] will get in,” he said.
“There are some really good new MPs.”
Wade-Brown is very pleased to have increased the party’s share of the vote in Wairarapa from 5.2 per cent in 2020 to 7.6 per cent this year.
“That’s pretty excellent,” she said.
“I’m very pleased with the Wairarapa campaign. It was a clean campaign.”
She said the Green party had stuck to its principles and shown they could make a difference.
National’s Mike Butterick won Wairarapa’s seat with 17,908 votes, and sitting MP Labour’s Kieran McAnulty came second with 15,427.
ACT’s Simon Casey was third with 1566 votes, NZ Loyal’s Pete Arnott was fourth with 1439, and Wade-Brown finished in fifth with 1361.
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