Richard Seddon Liberal Richard Seddon Liberal The 1896 New Zealand general election was held on Wednesday, 4 December in the general electorates, and on Thursday, 19 December in the Māori electorates to elect a total of 74 MPs to the 13th session of the New Zealand Parliament.

The economy stagnated, raising unemployment, which caused support for the Liberals to fall in the cities and they lost many seats, though not enough to be removed from office by the Conservatives.

[2] In June 1896 Seddon had replaced Joseph Ward as Finance Minister whilst the latter had resigned after being declared temporarily bankrupt.

He proved to be a cautious financier, budgeting for surpluses while maintaining the spirit of self reliance his predecessor John Ballance had advocated.

The following table gives party strengths and vote distribution according to Wilson (1985), who records Maori representatives as Independents prior to the 1905 election.