6 (general) & 19 December (Māori) 1899 1902 → 1893 1894 49 19 Start date 1899 | Turnout 77.6% 39 seats 26 seats 10 7 | |
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Winner Richard Seddon | ||
The New Zealand general election of 1899 was held on 6 and 19 December in the European and Māori electorates, respectively, to elect 74 MPs to the 14th session of the New Zealand Parliament. The election was again won by the Liberal Party, and Richard Seddon remained Prime Minister.
Contents
1896 electoral redistribution
The last electoral redistribution was undertaken in 1896 for the 1896 election, and the same electorates were used again. 34 seats were located in the North Island, 36 were in the South Island, and the remaining four were Māori electorates. Since the 1890 electoral redistribution, the four main centres had electorates with three seats each.
The election
The 1899 election was held on Wednesday, 6 December in the general electorates, and on Tuesday, 19 December in the Māori electorates to elect a total of 74 MPs to the 14th Parliament. A total number of 373,744 (77.6%) voters turned out to vote. In three electorates there was only one candidate, and they were thus returned unopposed. Two of those were Liberal candidates: Richard Seddon in the Westland electorate, and John McKenzie in the Waihemo electorate. The third was an opposition representative, William Russell, who stood in the Hawke's Bay electorate.
Two candidates died during the election campaign. A third, Henry Augustus Field, died two days after having been re-elected in the Otaki electorate.
Party totals
The following table gives party strengths and vote distribution according to Wilson (1985), who records Maori representatives as Independents prior to the 1905 election.
Electorate results
Seventy-four MPs were elected across sixty-two single-member, and four three-member electorates. The table below show the results of the 1899 general election:
Key
Liberal Conservative Independent Liberal Liberal-Labour Independent
Table footnotes: