2026 General Election
*An earlier posting of this did not contain a photo of Lee Smith. We apologise.
9 July 11am
New Zealand First and ACT have named their candidates to contest the Taranaki-King Country seat at the general election on November 7.
Bridalwear retailer Lee Smith becomes the NZ First candidate to stand in the Taranaki-King Country electorate since Peter Haines in 1999, while clinical pharmacist Ivana Jovicic joins the ACT Party ranks for the 2026 campaign.
Lee Smith is standing for New Zealand First in Taranaki-King Country.
ACT’s Taranaki-King Country candidate Ivana Jovicic. Photo: Dan TaskerThe sprawling seat which seat extends north the skirt Ngāruawāhia and south almost to Stratford and across to Taumarunui is a National strong hold. Barbara Kuriger has held it since 2014.
National and Labour candidates were confirmed in April – Kuriger will seek another term, Labour will put Tauwhare ecologist David Pattimore in her way.
Smith, 52, is no stranger to politics, having stood for the New Conservatives in 2020 and had intended to run for Democracy NZ in 2023, but in-house issues led her and four other candidates to pull pin.
Her interest in the political realm stemmed from her view the Labour-Greens government that came to power in 2017 was steering decisions away from democracy.
“I was just really concerned seeing a lot of the democratic processes being eroded quite quickly and just rushed decision-making,” Smith said.
The mother of six is involved with rural advocacy group Groundswell while the Labour-led coalition was in power.
“I put my hand up without even knowing what I was in for. My phone number went public with Groundswell, and it just never stopped ringing. People were so motivated to get on board and to help do anything they could, because a lot of people were feeling the pain of the Government.
“A lot of them felt like they couldn’t actually speak out against it, because I think (Prime Minister Jacinda) Ardern did a really good job of making people feel like they were unkind if they spoke out,” she said.
2026 General Election
Smith started a skincare business in Ōtorohanga in 2005 after moving from Taranaki where she had been share-milking. She believes her experience in the local farming and business sector has her well-placed to advocate for local people under the NZ First banner.
Jovicic, 42, was born in Croatia and mostly lived in Serbia before her family moved to Auckland in late-1996, seeking a better life following the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. She moved to Dunedin in 2000 to study pharmacy at the University of Otago, beginning an extensive medical career as a clinical pharmacist at Waikato Hospital for almost 20 years.
Jovicic recently attended ACT’s annual party rally, where she met leader David Seymour and minister Andrew Hoggard, and the party’s candidates and campaign team.
The Jiu Jitsu blue belt and mother of two is hoping to make a difference for the Taranaki-King Country community as her election campaign planning ramps up.
“We didn’t have an ACT candidate for the area previously, so I thought maybe I can be the voice for change for people in our area,” Jovicic said.
“I am a pretty private person, so for me, it really is the passion of making our communities better – that’s really it,” she said.
Much of Jovicic’s motivation for political change comes from her early life in Yugoslavia, seeing how socialism and racial division can destroy societies.
“Coming from a country where I’ve seen people that used to live together all of a sudden argue and divide, I really want to see a NZ that’s united and doesn’t discriminate against each other,” Jovicic said.
“We did have a lot of benefits of the social structure initially, but then it also was slowly crumbling apart and suddenly you had an education system that wasn’t really delivering, you had a healthcare system that was free, but you couldn’t get any appointments, and the quality wasn’t there,” she said.
Cutting red tape and advocating for better health, education and family outcomes were high on Jovicic’s list, as she prepared to hit the campaign trail in the coming months.
