New Zealand general election, 1890

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The New Zealand general election of 1890 was one of New Zealand's most significant.^[1] It marked the beginning of party politics in New Zealand with the formation of the First Liberal government, which was to enact major welfare, labour and electoral reforms, including giving the vote to women.

It was also the first election in which there was no legal plural voting. Multi-member electorates were re-introduced in the four main centres and the 'country quota' (which gave more weight to rural votes) was increased to 28%.

Seventy-four MPs were elected to the 11th session of the New Zealand Parliament. The Maori electorates voted on November 27 and the European (now known as General) electorates on December 5. There were 183,171 voters registered in the sixty-two European electorates, which returned a total of seventy members. This figure includes 13,668 voters in the six electorates where there was an unopposed return. 136,337 valid votes were cast in European electorates, including additional votes cast in the four three-member electorates.

Mackie and Rose suggest there was a 74.4% turnout, based on valid votes cast as a percentage of the registered electors. The official turnout figure is 80.4%, calculated on a different basis (see the Elections New Zealand official results web-site link below for further details of the changing methods used to calculate the official turnout).

The Maori vote, for the remaining four seats, was held on November 27. Maori voters were not registered at this period.

Following the election John Ballance formed the first Liberal Party ministry, taking office on 24 January 1891. At this stage no formal party organisation existed, but the formation of the Liberal ministry signalled the end of the system by which governments were made up of a loose and unstable coalition of independent MPs and the beginning of the 'party system'.

1 Result by Party
2 References
3 See also
4 External Link
5 Reference

[edit] Result by Party

Party	Candidates	Total votes	Percentage	Seats won
Conservatives	?	39,338	28.9%	25
Liberals	?	76,548	56.1%	38
Others	?	20,451	15.0%	11

Notes:
(1) Six European members were returned unopposed.
(2) The table excludes the four Maori electorates, except that the four MPs elected are included in the Others category.
(3) This election was held before the establishment of formal political parties, so the figures should only be regarded as an approximate indication of the division of political opinion.