Wellington City mayoral election, 1989
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| Turnout | 52,588 (49.94%) | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Wellington City mayoral election, 1989 was part of the New Zealand local elections held that same year. In 1989, elections were held for the Mayor of Wellington City plus other local government positions including twenty-one city councillors. The polling was conducted using the standard first-past-the-post electoral method.
The 1989 local elections were the first following a major overhaul of local government in New Zealand. The existing Wellington City Council remained in place but greatly expanded, absorbing several the neighboring Tawa Borough Council and land on the waterfront formerly in the possession of the Wellington Harbour Board.
The race for the mayoralty was bitterly fought with both sides of local politics in Wellington fighting internal divisions as well as each other. Mayor Jim Belich stood for a second term opposed by his former deputy Helene Ritchie who had left Labour after she was removed as deputy-mayor the previous year. The Citizens' Association also had rival candidates running against each other with Rex Nicholls running as the officially endorsed candidate with former Citizens' leader on the council David Bull and ex-councillor Roger Ridley-Smith running as an independent candidates after losing the nomination to Nicholls. As such, the race was characterised by vote splitting and provided a very closely spread result.
The council vote was likewise indecisive with no one group having control of the council. The Labour Party had lost its majority from 1986 and the Citizens' Association won a plurality becoming the largest group on the council. 1989 also saw the emergence of the Green Party who won a seat on the council, the first third party to do so since 1977. Stephen Rainbow won a seat in the Lambton Ward and became the country's first ever Green councillor.
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