Local elections 2025: Horizons voters narrowly back Māori constituencies in preliminary result, reversing progress result

The preliminary poll results show the majority of people in the Horizons region have voted to keep Māori constituencies but the margin is tight. Photo / NZME

The majority of voters are in favour of keeping Horizons Regional Council’s Māori constituencies, with the poll result changing between the progress and preliminary counts.

The preliminary results of the poll, conducted in conjunction with the local elections, were released on Monday and show 35,547 people have voted to keep Māori constituencies, with 35,424 voting to remove them.

The difference is just 123 votes.

In Saturday’s election progress results, there were 988 votes more in favour of removing Māori constituencies.

For the next council term, which is unaffected by the poll, Tonga Māori Regional Constituency will be represented by Te Kenehi Teira, who was elected unopposed, and the Raki Māori Regional Constituency by Elijah Pue.

The preliminary count has Pue on 2054 votes, more than 1000 ahead of second-placed Soraya Peke-Mason.

Pue said he was excited about the change in majority for keeping the Māori constituencies but said the margin “in the grand scheme of things, isn’t much at all”.

“I am hopeful, I believe our community will make the right decision. I believe in democracy ... I know that Māori wards are only going to make for a better, more representative democracy and far better decision-making than we have ever seen in the past,” he said.

The final results will be released on Friday, October 17, and Pue is looking forward to the final outcome.

“I believe our community will continue with this margin and this way forward, taking into account and following the lead of Whanganui, Ruapehu and others; this is the right thing to be doing and this is the right decision to make,” Pue said.

Other Māori ward preliminary results

For Ruapehu District Council, the progress results revealed the margin in favour of Māori wards was just 61 votes.

The preliminary results show the margin has increased to 90 votes.

Whanganui District Council has a majority of voters who want to retain the Māori ward.

The preliminary results show 7882 people voted to keep them and 7262 people voted to remove them – increasing the progress results margin by more than 200 votes.

The Rangitīkei District’s preliminary results show the majority (2623 to 2467) in favour of removing Māori wards.

The progress count had 2211 people in favour of removing the wards and 2029 voting to keep them.

In South Taranaki, the majority of people voted to remove Māori wards.

As it stands, there is a 735-vote differential in favour of removing the wards.

When to expect final results

The Whanganui and Ruapehu final results are expected to be released on Thursday, October 16.

The Horizons, South Taranaki and Rangitīkei final results are anticipated to be available on or just before Friday, October 17.

Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.