1899 New Zealand general election


The New Zealand general election of 1899 was held on 6 and 19 December in the European and Māori electorates, respectively, to elect 74 MPs to the 14th session of the New Zealand Parliament. The election was again won by the Liberal Party, and Richard Seddon remained Prime Minister.

1896 electoral redistribution

The last electoral redistribution was undertaken in 1896 for the, and the same electorates were used again. 34 seats were located in the North Island, 36 were in the South Island, and the remaining four were Māori electorates. Since the 1890 electoral redistribution, the four main centres had electorates with three seats each.

The election

The 1899 election was held on Wednesday, 6 December in the general electorates, and on Tuesday, 19 December in the Māori electorates to elect a total of 74 MPs to the 14th Parliament. A total number of 373,744 voters turned out to vote. In three electorates there was only one candidate, and they were thus returned unopposed. Two of those were Liberal candidates: Richard Seddon in the electorate, and John McKenzie in the electorate. The third was an opposition representative, William Russell, who stood in the electorate.
Two candidates died during the election campaign. A third, Henry Augustus Field, died two days after having been re-elected in the electorate.

Results

Party totals

The following table gives party strengths and vote distribution according to Wilson, who records Maori representatives as Independents prior to the.

Votes summary

Electorate results

Seventy-four MPs were elected across sixty-two single-member, and four three-member electorates.