The1959 Wellington mayoral election was part of the New Zealand local elections held that same year. In 1959, elections were held for theMayor of Wellington plus other local government positions including fifteen city councillors. The polling was conducted using the standardfirst-past-the-post electoral method.
Theright-leaningCitizens' Association ticket spent the three years since the last election resolving their candidate selection controversy with the intention of re-uniting themselves and their supporters to win back the mayoralty. Four people were nominated as the mayoral candidate with envelopes containing the names were passed to a fourteen member selection committee.[1] At the committee meetingErnest Toop was once again chosen to contest the position. The other three names were not disclosed, but one of the speculated nominees (former mayorThomas Hislop) confirmed his name was not among the nominations.[2] Despite having a clean run this time he was unable to defeatLabour's popularFrank Kitts.[3] The election also saw the debut of a new local body ticket. The Independent United Action Group stood ten council candidates under the leadership ofSaul Goldsmith, though all polled poorly. It was the first time a separate ticket had been set up to challenge the long dominant Citizens' and Labour tickets.[4]
While Kitts was re-elected, Labour's council ticket fared worse with its representation being halved from six seats to three. The overall anti-Labour vote (which was consistent nationwide) was attributed to the unpopularity of the thenLabour government.[5] Prime MinisterWalter Nash commented simply "We seem to have held the mayoralties" in reference that in Wellington (as well as inChristchurch andLower Hutt) Labour mayors were re-elected despite voters electing majority centre-right councils.[6] In increasing his majority over twelve percent against the national trend newspapers lauded Kitts' win as a 'personal triumph'.[7]
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