Wairarapa Green Party candidate Celia Wade-Brown is waiting for special votes to be counted. Photo: SUE TEODORO
Wairarapa Green Party candidate and former Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown says there is only a "slim possibility" she'll make Parliament.
Wade-Brown lost in her local Wairarapa electorate. The Greens would need to gain two further seats after special votes were counted for her to get in.
If she was elected via the Green's list, it could make her the third Wairarapa-based MP heading to Parliament.
National's Mike Butterick won the seat from Labour as the country swung back to blue on election night.
Kieran McAnulty will likely remain in Parliament as a Labour list MP.
Final results, including the number of list MPs, are expected to be known on 3 November.
Wade-Brown said it's unlikely she will get in, but she was happy the party vote had increased in the region. She had campaigned only for the party vote.
"I think it's a slim possibility," she said of her chances.
She had moved down from 15th to 16th on the party list, with Tamatha Paul winning Wellington central on Saturday. Paul was not on the party list.
About 567,000 special votes still needed to be counted, which are estimated to be more than 20 percent of total votes. This included an estimated 80,000 overseas and dictation votes.
It is possible the Greens will pick up at least one more MP. On current results, they have 14 MPs in the next Parliament.
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Wade-Brown said she was pleased the Greens won three extra election seats on Saturday, but "sad" with the overall election outcome.
As well as Wellington Central, the party also picked up Wellington's Rongotai from Labour and held on to Auckland Central for a second term.
She thought it was unlikely the Greens would get two more MPs on the special votes, which is what it would take for her to get to the Parliament on the list.
"I hope Kahurangi [Carter, 15th on the list] will get in.
"There are some really good new MPs."
She was very pleased to have increased the party's share of the vote in Wairarapa from 5.2 percent in 2020 to 7.6 percent this year.
"That's pretty excellent," she said.
"I'm very pleased with the Wairarapa campaign. It was a clean campaign."
She said the Green party had stuck to its principles and shown they could make a difference.
National's Mike Butterick won the Wairarapa seat with 17,908 votes.
Sitting MP Labour's Kieran McAnulty came second with 15,427.
ACT's Simon Casey third with 1566 votes, NZ Loyal's Pete Arnott was fourth with 1439 and Wade-Brown fifth with 1361.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air