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National Party’s West Coast-Tasman candidate, Maureen Pugh, has started packing up her parliamentary office in anticipation of losing her seat. Photo / Supplied
The National Party’s parliamentary hand is expected to weaken when the Electoral Commission releases the final results of the 2020 election at 2pm today.
The party’s support has on average dropped 0.73 per cent on special votes, and it has lost at least one seat after the final count since 2005; Labour and the Greens on average get a 0.43 per cent bump.
The provisional results were: Labour on 49.1 per cent (64 seats), National on 26.8 per cent (35 seats), Act on 8 per cent (10 seats), the Greens on 7.6 per cent (10 seats) and the Māori Party with the seat of Waiariki.
The final results – which will include 480,0000-odd special votes, or 17 per cent of the total – will not change the parliamentary majority that Labour holds, or the Labour-Greens cooperation agreement that has already…