Election signs in New Zealand’s
2005 mixed member proportional
(MMP) general election

New Zealand’s fourth general election under the country's mixed member proportional (MMP) representation electoral system was held on 17 September 2005. Several factors made the election especially noteworthy. For a start, the National Party’s share of the nationwide party vote (39.1%) was nearly double its 2002 share of the poll, but the Labour Party was – for the third successive election – the country’s highest polling party and retained its position as the leading party in the government formed after the election. In 2005, the Maori Party not only won seats in a general election for the first time, but it also won the first ‘overhang’ seat to be awarded under the country’s comparatively new MMP electoral system; as a result New Zealand’s 2005-08 Parliament consisted of 121 MPs (instead of the 120 Members envisaged in the 1993 Electoral Act).