As the country's mayors settle into their new roles, mayoral hopefuls from four districts have been left on tenterhooks as they wait for the final votes to be counted.
The Far North had declared Ann Court as its mayor when its special votes pushed Moko Tepania into the lead.
In Matamata-Piako, it was too close to call, with just 123 votes between Adrienne Wilcock and Stu Husband.
In Southland, there's three contenders for the top job, with Rob Scott leading Geoffrey Young by 18 votes. Incumbent mayor Gary Tong, meanwhile, is in third place with 15 votes behind Young.
Meanwhile, in Gore, Ben Bell is neck-and-neck with incumbent mayor Tracy Hicks.
Should Bell be selected, the 23-year-old will become the youngest mayor in the country's history.
Bell joked that he decided to run for mayor because he "just really liked the mayoral chain".
"I think they would be a great fashion accessory," he told Seven Sharp.
He said it's been a "mixture of emotions" waiting on the results of the special votes.
"Stressed, happy; I'm just so busy with everyone trying to get a piece of me at the moment that I don't really get the time to sit there and be stressed about everything," he said.
The provisional results has Bell narrowly ahead of Hicks.
He said he was "pretty sombre and hopeful still, just doing up things in the house" as the results began coming through with Bell 11 points behind Hicks.
"The next day, the preliminary votes came through and then suddenly, I was 13 ahead so I was ecstatic.
"There's still 67 votes to be counted so it could still go either way."
Bell said he was originally expected to find out the results on Thursday, "but now there's rumours going around the rumour mill that it might not even be until Friday".
"I'm hoping that it's Thursday. I'm hoping that they can get those votes done but we'll just have to wait and see."


















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