Election signs in New Zealand’s
2008 mixed member proportional
(MMP) general election

New Zealand’s fifth general election under the country's mixed member proportional (MMP) representation electoral system was held on 8 November 2008. After nine years – i.e., three Parliamentary terms – of Labour-led government, electors turned to the National Party, which became the first party in New Zealand to win more than a million votes in a general election. Two other notable features of the election were that only three parties – National, Labour, and the Greens – crossed the mixed member proportional system’s five-percent party vote threshold for election to Parliament (which was the lowest number of parties to do so in the first nine MMP elections in New Zealand); and that the Maori Party won two ‘overhang’ seats, which meant that the 2008-11 House of Representatives was – with 122 MPs – the largest in the history of the country.