New Zealand’s centrist kingmaker says populism failing voters worldwide

New Zealand faces weeks of political wrangling after results Sunday showed no clear winner.WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — The leader of New Zealand’s ascendant centrist movement said Monday that voters worldwide were turning against populism after her party secured a record result in last week’s elections.Qiulae Wong’s Opportunity Party could play a kingmaker role in New Zealand’s next government after a knife-edge vote in which neither of the country’s main parties won enough seats to govern alone.Speaking outside Parliament, she said her win represented a sea change after a decade of rising populism and extremism worldwide.“I think we are seeing a push globally for more pragmatic politics,” she told journalists.“We’ve seen that populism doesn’t deliver results,” she said.“It is paper thin, it doesn’t have substance around taking countries forward. So it’s really encouraging to have had that support,” she said. “Nearly 150,000 New Zealanders that have voted for Opportunity want to see that more pragmatic approach to politics.”New Zealand now faces weeks of political wrangling after results Sunday showed no clear winner.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has declared his right-wing coalition secured a mandate to form the next government — while conceding results remained too close to call definitively.Preliminary results have his National Party winning the most seats, giving them a slim majority if combined with their coalition partners, the populist NZ First and the libertarian ACT.Luxon will run a caretaker government until the final votes are announced on Nov. 27.And while he has said he doesn’t think he will need Opportunity’s backing to form a new administration, Luxon has said he is open to working with the movement to get things done.Wong has said she will work with whichever party has the largest number of seats — but insisted that her party’s “bottom lines” on climate change action, cost of living and cleaning up politics are non-negotiable.She said Monday she had not yet heard from the prime minister but was keen to talk.“We are coming to that table constructively with pragmatism and some bold ideas,” she said Monday. “If they want to work with us and come to the table with the same kind of attitude, then that’s great.”‘Not over yet’That final tally will include nearly 400,000 so-called “special votes” — among them around 100,000 cast overseas and by people within New Zealand but outside the local electorate in which they live.Historically, special votes leaned left, potentially giving the center-left Labour or Green parties an additional one or two seats at the expense of the right-bloc.Political analyst Brigitte Morten said Labour could have a path to power once all the votes are counted — with Opportunity as the “kingmaker.”“It’s definitely possible,” Morten, a lawyer and a former advisor to National Party ministers, told AFP.But she said with four parties involved — Labour, the Green Party, Opportunity and Te Pati Maori, which represents the interests of New Zealand’s Indigenous people — “it would be a very difficult coalition to negotiate, and then a difficult one to manage.”Opposition leader Chris Hipkins of Labour insisted Monday the election is “not over yet.”“We could be forming a government before Christmas,” Hipkins said.—By OLIVER HOTHAM Agence France-PresseSubscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads