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All 80 seats in the New Zealand Parliament 41 seats were needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Results of the election. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1935 New Zealand general election was a nationwide vote to determine the shape of the New Zealand Parliament's 25th term. It resulted in the Labour Party's first electoral victory, with Michael Joseph Savage becoming the first Labour Prime Minister after defeating the governing coalition, consisting of the United Party and the Reform Party, in a landslide.
The governing coalition lost 31 seats, which was attributed by many to their handling of the Great Depression: the year after the election, the United and Reform parties merged to form the modern National Party.
The election was originally scheduled to be held in 1934, in keeping with the country's three-year election cycle, but the governing coalition postponed the election by one year hoping that the economic conditions would improve by 1935.[1]