ACT list: Parmjeet Parmar slips but stays in the game as Ash Parmar is placed 16th
Act candidates Himanshu Parmar and Parmjeet Parmar.
Two repeat Indian-origin candidates have both slipped in the rankings, while two first-timers are ranked significantly lower.
Sitting MP Parmjeet Parmar has slipped one place on ACT’s party list for the 2026 election but remains in a strong position to return to Parliament.
ACT released its party list on Sunday, placing Parmjeet at No 10, compared with ninth at the 2023 election. Himanshu "Ash" Parmar, ACT’s candidate in Waikato, has fallen three places from 13th in 2023 to 16th this time.
The rankings matter particularly for ACT because the party relies heavily on its list, rather than electorate victories, to get MPs into Parliament.
At the 2023 election, ACT won 11 seats but only two electorate contests, Epsom and Tāmaki. Its other nine MPs entered Parliament through the party list.
That meant Parmjeet ninth-place ranking was high enough to return her to Parliament, while Ash missed out from 13th. Recent polls suggest Parmjeet remains well placed this time too.
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An August 1News-Verian poll projected 11 seats for ACT, while the latest Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll projected 14. On either projection, a No 10 ranking would put Parmjeet in contention to return as an MP.
Ash No 16 ranking, however, leaves him outside the range suggested by those polls and means he would likely need ACT to perform considerably better than its current projections, or win the Waikato electorate, to enter Parliament.
ACT’s fortunes have also moved considerably during the year. A June Curia poll projected 10 seats for the party, while its August poll projected just nine before the September result lifted the projection to 14. That makes Parmjeet place at No 10 competitive rather than guaranteed.
Ash made his ACT debut at the 2023 election as the party’s candidate in Hamilton East. He was ranked 13th on the party list and received 1,679 electorate votes, but did not enter Parliament after ACT secured 11 seats. This year he is contesting the neighbouring Waikato electorate.
Parmjeet had previously served as a National MP before joining ACT and returning to Parliament as an ACT list MP in 2023. She is currently the party’s only MP of Indian origin.
ACT has two other Kiwi-Indian candidates further down its new list. Māngere candidate Manu Singh has been ranked 26th, while Papakura candidate Malkiat Singh is at No. 29.
Those rankings leave both well outside the range suggested by recent polling, making an electorate victory their more realistic (though highly unlikely) route to Parliament.
ACT’s list is headed by leader David Seymour, followed by Nicole McKee and Andrew Hoggard.
Broadcaster Paul Henry, one of the party’s highest-profile new recruits, has been placed fourth. Karen Chhour is fifth, Todd Stephenson sixth and James Christmas seventh, followed by Simon Court at No 8 and Laura McClure at No. 9
Under New Zealand’s MMP system, voters have two votes. One for their local electorate MP and another for a political party.
The party vote largely determines how many MPs a party receives. Electorate winners count towards that total first, with the remaining places filled by candidates according to their ranking on the party list.
