Prussia of the Pacific?

A Guardian columnist points out an eerie similarity between the recent elections in NZ and Germany. Both were held on the same weekend and both delivered a spectacularly close finish between the two dominant centre-right and centre-left parties. “The obvious answer to the problem would be for Germany’s SPD party to form a grand coalition with NZ’s Labour and rule both countries – NZ did once rejoice in a 19th-century nickname as ‘the Prussia of the Pacific.'”