Christchurch's sitting mayor Gary Moore has been returned to office on today's provisional count in the local body elections.
Today's provisonal count gave him 46,859 votes - 16,830 ahead of his nearest rival TV and radio personality George Balani.
In spite of claims by some pundits before the count day that the mayorality would be a near-run thing, Mr Moore emerged with a clear margin.
He secured 42.5 per cent of the vote, while Mr Balani had 27.2 per cent; and Mr Moore's long standing rival Gordon Freeman secured 12.8 per cent of the votes: 14,143.
Mr Moore stood for Christchurch 2021 as the Positive Choice; Mr Balani as an Independent; Mr Freeman as Independent Citizens; while a councillor in the last administration, Robin Booth, who finished at the head of the rest of the fourteen candidate field stood as True Independent.
Mr Booth took 6394 or 5.8 per cent of the votes on the provisional count.
- CHRISTCHURCH STAR
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Local Government New Zealand
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