At stake in this election:

• 121 seats in the House of Representatives

Description of government structure:

• Chief of State: Queen ELIZABETH II *
• Head of Government: Prime Minister John KEYS
• Assembly: New Zealand has a unicameral House of Representatives with 121 seats.

* The Queen is represented by Governor General Anand SATYANAND (since 23 August 2006).

Description of electoral system:

• The Queen is hereditary head of state.
• The Prime Minister is appointed by the governor-general.**
• In the House of Representatives, 70 members are elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies to serve 3-year terms and 50 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system to serve 3-year terms.***

** The leader of the majority party or the leader of a majority coalition is usually appointed prime minister.

*** The electoral system is MMP. The voter has two votes: one for a party, one for the respective single-member constituency. Seven constituencies are reserved to the Maori people. Once constituency seats are filled, PR list seats are allocated to each party until its overall seat share is proportional to its share of party votes. Parties must clear a national threshold of 5 percent or win at least one constituency seat in order to qualify for seats in the ordinal tier. If a party wins more seats in the nominal tier than it would have been entitled to based on its share of ordinal tier votes, it keeps these seats, known as "overhang."

Main parties in the electoral race:

• Party: New Zealand Labour Party / Rōpū Reipa o Aotearoa
  • Leader: Moira COATSWORTH
  • Seats won in this election: 34
  • Seats won in last election: 42
• Party: New Zealand National Party / Rōpū Nāhinara
  • Leader: John KEY
  • Seats won in this election: 59
  • Seats won in last election: 58
• Party: ACT New Zealand
  • Leader: Don BRASH
  • Seats won in this election: 1
  • Seats won in last election: 5
• Party: Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Leader: Metiria TUREI and Russel NORMAN
  • Seats won in this election: 14
  • Seats won in last election: 9
• Party: Māori Party / Te Tōrangapū Māori
  • Leader: Tariana TURIA and Pita SHARPLES
  • Seats won in this election: 3
  • Seats won in last election: 4
• Party: United Future
  • Leader: Peter DUNNE
  • Seats won in this election: 1
  • Seats won in last election: 1
• Party: New Zealand First / Aotearoa Tuatahi
  • Leader: Winston PETERS
  • Seats won in this election: 8
  • Seats won in last election: 0
• Party: Mana Party
  • Leader: Hone HAWAWIRA
  • Seats won in this election: 1
  • Seats won in last election: N/A

Population and number of registered voters:

• Population: 4,384,000 (2011)
• Registered Voters: 3,070,847 (November 2011)

Gender Data:

·         Female Population: 2,233,129 (2011)

·         Is New Zealand a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (17 July 1980)

·         Has New Zealand ratified CEDAW: Yes (10 January 1985)

·         Gender Quota: No

·         Female candidates in this election: Yes

·         Number of Female Parliamentarians: 39 (following the 2011 elections)

·         Human Development Index Position: 9 (2014)

·         Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: N/A

Disability Data:

·         Is New Zealand a signatory to CRPD: Yes (30 March 2007)

·         Has New Zealand ratified CRPD: Yes (25 September 2008)

·         Population with a disability: 657,600 (est.)