The Opportunity Party will run candidates in about 30 electorates, but says its gunning for 5% of the party vote.
The Opportunity Party will more than double the number of candidates it runs in this year’s general election, and its new leader, Qiulae Wong, will stand in Mt Albert.
General manager Iain Lees-Galloway told The Spinoff the party will run candidates in about 30 electorates, up from 13 at the last election.
“We appreciate, this time around, the importance of having real human beings from their local communities representing the party in their local communities, people that voters can have a conversation with, and who can personify the party in their local communities,” he said.
Wong, who became leader in November 2025, will stand in the Auckland electorate of Mt Albert, long known as a Labour safe seat, and currently held by Labour’s Helen White.
“They say it’s a safe Labour seat, but they only won it by about 20 votes at the last election, so I think it is up for grabs,” she said.
“It also has a real changing demographic. It’s where I live, and a lot of my friends live, in that kind of Mt Albert-Point Chev-Morningside triangle. I think there’s a lot of young professionals, young families like mine, that I think are our target voter base. So, I do think we’ve got a good shot.”
Labour’s Helen White won Mt Albert in 2023, with National’s Melissa Lee only 18 votes behind her. The Green’s Ricardo Menéndez March was third, and then Act’s Ollie Murphy was a distant fourth. The Opportunity Party candidate, Ciara Swords, came fifth.
The seat has previously been held by three Labour leaders – Helen Clark, David Shearer and Jacinda Ardern.
Lees-Galloway said that while the party would contest more seats, it was gunning for 5% of the party vote as its ticket into parliament. It won 2.22% of the party vote at the last election.
The party’s electorate plans were revealed as Lees-Galloway, a former senior Labour minister, gave The Spinoff an in-depth interview about his return to politics.
He became the Opportunity Party’s full-time general manager last month, more than five years after Jacinda Ardern sacked him from cabinet when he admitted an affair with someone who had previously worked in his office and then in one of his agencies.
Lees-Galloway said he made a mistake, had worked on himself, with the help of therapy, and felt he still had something to offer in politics.
“I went through a period of deliberate introspection and deliberate reflection on what it was about me that led to the mistakes that I made… learning a lot more about my personality and a lot more about my psychology and what things I need to put in place to work with who I am.
“I think I understand myself a lot better, and I’m alert to what the warning signals are that I need to be aware of,” he said.
Read the full interview here: Iain Lees-Galloway on crashing out of parliament and his new Opportunity.
