Last week, nominations closed for the 2014 New Zealand general election.
548 candidates have nominated for the election. 365 candidates have nominated both for an electorate, and on a party list. 118 candidates have nominated for an electorate only (for a total of 483 electorate candidates), and 65 candidates have nominated for a list seat only (for a total of 430 list candidates).
There are 120 sitting Members of Parliament (with one vacancy caused by the recent resignation of ACT’s John Banks). Of these MPs, nineteen are retiring at the election, and 101 are running for re-election.
These retiring MPs include 13 National MPs, three Labour MPs, two Māori Party MPs and one member of New Zealand First. That NZ First MP, Andrew Williams, was dropped from the party’s list entirely after publicly expressing discontent over being given an unwinnable position on the party list.
A number of other MPs are running again, but in an unwinnable position. Green MP Holly Walker withdrew from a winnable position on the party list due to personal reasons, but is still running as an electorate candidate in Hutt South. Independent MP Brendan Horan, who was elected as a NZ First candidate in 2011, is running as the lead candidate for the NZ Independent Coalition, but isn’t considered to have a serious chance of winning re-election.
There are fifteen party lists registered for the election. This is the seventh election under the MMP system, and the number of party lists has ranged from 13 (in 2011) to 22 (in 1999). One of these party lists is a joint list including both Mana and Internet Party candidates. Seven other parties are currently represented in Parliament, and another seven are not.
Another eight small parties are running candidates in a small number of electorates (ranging from one to five), as well as twenty-four independents.
The Labour Party is the only party that is running in all 71 electorates. The National Party and Conservative Party are both running in all 64 general electorates, but are not running in any Māori electorates. The Green Party is running in 57 electorates, including 53 general electorates and four Māori electorates. The ACT party is running in 39 electorates, and New Zealand First is running in 31 electorates, and Internet Mana are running 33 candidates between them. The Māori Party is running in all seven Māori electorates, and 17 general electorates.
The number of candidates running in each electorate ranges from three in the Māori electorate of Hauraki-Waikato to eleven in the electorates of Epsom and Tauranga.
I’ve identified the gender of all but three candidates running in the election.
44.2% of Labour candidates are women, as are 38.3% of Green candidates and 25% of National candidates. 45% of Mana Party candidates and 40% of Internet Party candidates are women, while over 80% of ACT and NZ First candidates are men.
All electorate candidates’ names are now posted on each electorate profile.
If you’d like to analyse the list of candidates yourself, you can view the spreadsheet here.
