Eleven MPs of Asian heritage are likely to sit in the next Parliament, the same number as last term, RNZ reports. That count is based on preliminary results. Special votes are still being counted and the Electoral Commission expects to declare the official result on 27 November.
The total hides a lot of movement. Two candidates made history on Saturday night, while three sitting National MPs of Asian heritage look set to lose their places.
Two firsts
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong becomes the first Asian leader of a political party in Parliament, RNZ says. Opportunity won about 6 percent of the party vote on the preliminary count, which gives it seven seats. Wong did not win Mt Albert herself. She got just under 4000 votes there, almost 10,000 fewer than Labour's Helen White.
"You guys have voted for unity over division," Wong told supporters on election night.
In Tāmaki, National's Mahesh Muralidhar is set to become the party's first Indian MP to win an electorate. RNZ's results page has him on 15,330 votes, ahead of Labour's Max Harris on 9974 and ACT's James Christmas on 7670. National's two earlier Indian-origin MPs, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and Parmjeet Parmar, both came in on the party list.
Muralidhar runs Phase One Ventures, a venture capital firm, and worked at Canva from 2015 to 2017. He stood in Auckland Central in 2023 and lost to the Greens' Chlöe Swarbrick. This time he told RNZ he knocked on about 16,000 doors.
"I'll be there for the community in regards to making sure that the community is understood and heard," he said.
Who is out
National's poor party vote hurt its list candidates. The party got about 29 percent and, on the preliminary count, won no list seats at all, RNZ reports. That is why list MP Nancy Lu, ranked 15th, is not returning.
Lu said three years had not been enough to do what she hoped. She also said the number of Chinese MPs should better reflect the share of Chinese New Zealanders in the population. "At the moment, it certainly doesn't," she said.
Former Cabinet minister Melissa Lee tried to take Mt Albert from Labour and finished about 4700 votes behind Helen White, with 9389 votes. She told RNZ she was disappointed and had made no plans beyond Parliament.
The closest race involves Mt Roskill MP Carlos Cheung. He trails Labour's Michael Wood by 262 votes, and at one point on Saturday night the two were a single vote apart. Special votes could still change that result.
Who is returning
On these numbers, the Greens' Lawrence Xu-Nan is the only Chinese MP to have secured re-election. He came fourth in Epsom with about 10 percent of the electorate vote, but returns as a list MP ranked eighth.
"We as a country should no longer tolerate any more sort of racism that we're seeing towards our communities," he said.
Others named by RNZ include:
- Labour's Vanushi Walters, who held Waitākere by more than 2600 votes over National's Agnes Loheni
- Labour's Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who lost Maungakiekie by almost 3000 votes but returns on the list
- Labour's Ayesha Verrall, who lost Wellington North to the Greens' Tamantha Paul and returns as a list MP ranked sixth
- Labour newcomer Rakesh Naidoo, a list MP
- ACT's Parmjeet Parmar, ranked 10th on her party's list
- The Greens' Lan Pham (sixth on the list) and Francisco Hernandez (10th)
Pham said it was disappointing to see several Asian MPs lose their seats. "Greater Asian representation is absolutely critical because we know that Asian voices are a growing percentage of the New Zealand population," she said.
Some candidates came close and still missed out. In Takanini, Labour's Kharag Singh lost to National's Rima Nakhle by just under 1500 votes. Former Labour MP Naisi Chen came third in Auckland Central. NZ First's Bernadette Soares, standing in Upper Harbour, was too low on her party's list to get in.
What could still change
Every figure here is preliminary. Electorates with small margins, such as Mt Roskill, could flip once special votes are counted. Changes to the party vote could also move list seats, which decides whether candidates near the cut-off on each list get in.
Our earlier explainer covers how special votes could change the result before 27 November. For more on Wong's party, see who Opportunity is and what it wants.
