Election signs in New Zealand’s
2014 mixed member proportional
(MMP) general election

New Zealand’s seventh general election under the country's mixed member proportional (MMP) representation electoral system was held on 20 September 2014. Although the National Party’s share of the party votes fell by a quarter of one percent compared with 2011, the party won 60 seats and came close to winning a majority of the seats in Parliament. The Labour Party, on the other hand, won a lower share of the poll (namely, 25.1 percent) than it had achieved in any general election since 1922. As was the case in 2011, the Green and New Zealand First parties both crossed MMP’s five percent party vote threshold. The Maori Party won a list seat for the first time, but its overall representation in the House of Representatives dropped to two seats. Peter Dunne was re-elected to Parliament, but his party – United Future – won so few party votes that Dunne became an overhang MP, and for the fourth successive time the New Zealand Parliament contained more than the 120 MPs envisaged in the 1993 Electoral Act.