Prime minister John Key has led his National party to a likely historic single-party majority with the bulk of votes counted

The John Key-led National party will return to power in New Zealand for a third consecutive term, having survived waves of scandal during a volatile and antagonistic election campaign to secure an overwhelming victory.

National is on the brink of securing the first single-party parliamentary majority since New Zealand moved to its Mixed Member Proportional electoral system in 1996.



The result is a disaster for the main opposition Labour party, while the Mana-Internet party experiment, backed by Kim Dotcom, has spectacularly backfired, failing to win so much as a single seat.

Arriving at the party’s headquarters on the Auckland waterfront to chants of “three more years”, Key said the result signalled a “victory for the people, the policies, the unity and the vision that National will bring to government for the next three years”.

Describing himself as “humble and at the same time energised”, Key pledged to “continue to provide the strong and stable government that is working for New Zealand”.

“We are the finest little nation on the planet, I truly believe that. Our future as a country is bright, our opportunities are unlimited.”

The provisional final count saw National win 48% of the party vote, which determines the composition of parliament under New Zealand’s proportional system, enough to gain them 61 seats in a 121 seat chamber. The Labour party trailed on 25%, with the Green party on 10% and the New Zealand First Party, which had been picked as a likely kingmaker, on 9%.

The rightwing family-values Conservative party, funded by the millions of its leader Colin Craig, finished the night on 4%, failing to reach the crucial 5% threshold that is required to enter parliament by any party without an electorate seat.

Dotcom, currently being sought for extradition from New Zealand by the US to face copyright and money laundering charges, brokered and bankrolled to the tune of an estimated NZ $4 million the strategic alliance of the Internet Party with leftwing Maori-focused Mana party with the express purpose of removing John Key’s government.

The party’s success hinged on the Mana leader, Hone Harawira, winning his seat, Te Tai Tokerau, to bring other MPs in with him. He was defeated in the Maori electorate by Labour’s Kelvin Davis, however, with National and New Zealand First both having urged their supporters to vote to support Davis and scupper the Dotcom project.

The German entrepreneur blamed himself for the result, acknowledging “the brand Dotcom was poison”.

Even if the final numbers, following special votes, allow National to form a single-party majority government, Key will seek support from the Maori Party, ACT and United Future, which between them won four seats, the same group of parties with which he was previously allied.

Key said he intended to “talk to other leaders of political parties, with a view to putting together a broader majority and to ensure a durable and strong government”.

Labour had hoped it might build a government encompassing Greens and NZ First, but the party, beleaguered by infighting in the lead-up to the campaign, are left facing a period of introspection, with a number of high-profile MPs losing their seats.

Speaking to the party faithful in west Auckland, Cunliffe said he intended to continue as leader, while acknowledging he would go through the selection process required under party rules. The the “rebuild of the party and the campaign for the next election” would begin immediately, he said.

He lamented “a campaign beset by dirty politics and sideshows, involving potential abuses of power at the highest level that will still take months and months to unravel”, but which had “distracted from the issues that are more core to the future of our country”.

Cunliffe added that the results on the night “clearly stated that wealthy individuals cannot buy politics, be they Kim Dotcom or Colin Craig”.

Conventional policy arguments have been squeezed to the edges of the campaign, with two major controversies dominating headlines and putting Key on the defensive. The release of a book by Nicky Hager, Dirty Politics, described links between senior figures in the National Party and the rightwing attack-blog Whale Oil.

Further fuel was added to the fire with the repeated release of hacked online correspondence, upon which the book had drawn, by a mysterious character called “Rawshark”. The revelations led ultimately to the resignation of the justice minister.

Just as the campaign was beginning to regain some normalcy, another intervention stole the spotlight. Hosted by Dotcom, journalist Glenn Greenwald’s arrived in New Zealand promising to disprove Key’s denial that mass surveillance was undertaken by local intelligence agencies. Key denied the claim, dismissing Greenwald a conspiracy theorist, a “henchman” for Dotcom, and even a “loser”.

The controversy culminated in an event billed by Dotcom as “the Moment of Truth” at the Auckland Town Hall on Monday night, with Greenwald joined on the big screen by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The revelations from Snowden and Greenwald were muddied, however, by Dotcom’s failure to provide the evidence he had promised to unveil showing that John Key had colluded with Hollywood lobbyists in planning for his extradition.