NZ Maori Party may hold key to general elections

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP)

New Zealanders voted Saturday to choose a new government, with long-serving Prime Minister Helen Clark facing a tough challenge from a conservative rival and a chance that indigenous Maori will hold the balance of power for the first time.

In bright spring sunshine, voters cast ballots at more than 2,500 polling stations set up in schools, churches and community halls across the South Pacific country of some 4.1 million people perhaps best known for its "Lord of the Rings" landscape. Polls closed in the early evening, and results were expected within a few hours.

The two major parties - Clark's Labour and conservative John Key's Nationals - are almost certain not to gain a majority in the 123-seat Parliament in their own right, and have already wooed smaller groups to their side.

Opinion polls have consistently tipped the Nationals, with its allies, to win power for the first time in a decade. With 6 percent of the vote counted, Key had an early lead with 49 percent while Labour and its Green Party ally holding 37 percent.

A surge by Labour - which Clark insisted Saturday could happen - may hand the balance of power to the Maori Party, which is expected to win at least four seats and is the only small player not already aligned with one of the big parties.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says it is prepared to put either National or Labour into government, and that a deal would "come at a cost."

"We'll decide totally based on ... what we are able to advance for our people," Turia said this week.

Among their demands are the repeal of a law preventing Maori from claiming rights to the seabed and foreshore, and greater control over government spending on indigenous programs to prevent waste.

Clark says she is willing to bargain with the Maori Party; Key concedes his party is "diametrically opposed" to the Maori group on some issues but said he will strike a deal if it means taking power.