New Zealand's centre-right National Party will head the country's next government after Saturday's general election, but it will be several weeks until vote counting is finalised and for now the country is in transition. National won 50 seats and the right-wing, free-market ACT Party won 11, securing a majority of just one seat in the 121-seat parliament, according to provisional results from the Electoral Commission. If they do, National may need the support of populist New Zealand First and its leader Winston Peters to form a government.
Slovakia’s president has refused a plan by her country’s caretaker government to send further military aid to Ukraine, saying it doesn't have the authority and parties that oppose such support are in talks to form a government following last week’s election. The presidential office said in a statement Thursday that the current government of technocrats has only limited powers because it lost a mandatory confidence vote in Parliament on June 15, a month after President Zuzana Caputova swore it in. Caputova on Monday asked the leader of the winning party in the election to try to form a coalition government.
In a relief to the inflation-weary masses, the caretaker government Saturday dropped the price of petrol for the next fortnight by Rs8, the first time.