Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has congratulated New Zealand Prime Minister-designate Christopher Luxon, the leader of the National Party, on winning the elections over the weekend.

PM Brown told Cook Islands News on Monday: “I spoke to Christopher last night and congratulated him and mentioned that I hope to welcome him to the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting next month.”

Brown said Luxon reaffirmed the special connection between the two nations, and said he looked forward to deepening that connection. 

“I do understand that final counts will not be completed until November 3, but I do hope that he will make it to the Forum Meeting, as this is a unique opportunity at the start of his term to meet with all of our Pacific leaders for important regional discussions.”

Luxon took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter), posting a photograph of himself on the phone to Brown.

“Great to speak with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown to reaffirm the strong connection between our two countries,” Luxon said in his post.

“I’m looking forward to deepening that connection under my government.”

It won’t be until November 3 that the Electoral Commission will finally confirm the full results of Saturday’s election, as it still has 20 per cent of the vote to count.

That 20 per cent comes from the 567,000 special votes that were cast, which take more time to verify and sort out.

As it stands, National, along with ACT would have 61 seats on current voting in a Parliament of 121, according to the Electoral Commission count.

On Saturday night (NZ) Labour leader and incumbent Prime Minister Chris Hipkins conceded the election to Luxon, who will become New Zealand’s 42^nd Prime Minister.    

It was an impressive victory for the National Party – which on current numbers, would have enough votes to form a coalition government with just ACT.

But with special votes still to come, Luxon isn’t ruling anything out.    

It was a brutal night for Labour which will likely lose several of its MPs who rode in on Labour’s red wave in the 2020 election.   

But the Greens and Te Pāti Māori both had a good night winning three and four electorates respectively.

NZ First has returned to parliament, with eight projected list seats and leader Winston Peters has said he will help if he can, going forward.

Leaders of the three potential bedfellows, Luxon, Peters, and ACT’s David Seymour, seem to have reached agreement that any substantial negotiations should commence once the full vote has been counted.