By Huang Xingwei, Xinhua,
Wellington : The eligible voters in New Zealand began to cast their ballots on Saturday to elect members of the parliament.
Some 2,700 polling stations around the country opened at 09:00 a.m. local time on Saturday (2000 GMT Friday) and will close at 07:00 p.m. (0600 GMT). Nearly 3 million eligible voters are expected to cast their ballots. New Zealand’s total population is 4.3 million.
Queues began to form at some polling centers shortly after opening. With an estimated number of 267,000 advance votes, which is a record, officials believed that the turnout could be a record.
The leaders of the two main parties were in Auckland as the country votes.
Labor party leader and Prime Minister Helen Clark cast her ballot at Kowhai Intermediate School in Mt Eden, in her Mt Albert electorate in Auckland on Saturday morning.
Clark said although opinion poll showed the National party took some lead, the Labor still has the chance and she was confident about the election.
And the National Party leader, John Key, voted at Parnell District School, in the Epsom electorate in Aukland, although he was contesting the Helensville electorate.
Other political party leaders followed suit at other polling stations around the country.
At 11:10 a.m. local time, United Future party leader Peter Dunne went to the polling place at St Barnabas Church Hall, Wellington’s suburb of Khandallah, to cast his vote.
He told Xinhua that he was confident he will be elected member of the parliament at his electorate. He said there was a mood among the voters of changing the government.
“And the voters will have their final say. There will be a surprise about the election results,” Dunne said.
A middle-aged voter named Stephen said that he would vote for the opposition National party, because he wanted to see some change. “The Labor has governed the country for nine years. Why not give the National an opportunity?”
An old pensioner named Paula said she will vote for Labor so she can hold on to the pension. “It is better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know. I think the Labor has done a good job,” she said.
Under the Electoral Law, each voter has a party vote and an electorate vote. The party vote will help decide the share of seats each party gets in the parliament. The electorate vote helps decide who becomes the local members of the parliament.
There are 63 general electorate seats, 7 Maori electorate seats and 50 lists seats in the parliament.
A total of 19 registered political parties and 681 candidates were contesting the election, held every three years.
The preliminary election results were expected to be announced on Saturday evening. The official results are expected on Nov. 22.
New Zealand’s main opposition National Party leads the ruling Labor Party and is poised to win the election, according to the final round of polls released on Friday evening.
The last opinion poll released before the election puts the National Party ahead of Labor by 7.5 points. Four other polls published on Thursday and Friday also put National in the lead, by a greater margin.
The Roy Morgan poll published on Friday evening put National on42 percent support, down one point from the previous poll, and Labor up 2.5 points to 34.5 percent — giving National a 7.5 percent lead.