Angee Nicholas on future plans and how she almost upset a Labour veteran

Despite three weeks of “huge tension”, Angee Nicholas is vowing to learn from her tight election loss and come back stronger next time.

The 29-year-old lawyer of Cook Islands descent was declared the presumptive Te Ātatu electorate winner on election night.

But after 20 days, the special votes swung back in favour of incumbent Phil Tywford, who was named the eventual winner by a tiny margin of 131 votes.

National's Agnes Loheni, left and Angee Nicholas both just missed out on entering Parliament. Photo/ Supplied

The National Party candidate says she has “no regrets” but will learn a lot from her first campaign experience.

“There’s always points of reflection on what could be improved,” she told Levi Matautia-Morgan on 531pi’s Pacific Mornings.

“Definitely room for improvement but we pulled off quite a good result in the end.

“But I think part of our success is we were visible and we got out as much as possible and that was a huge part of my success.”

Given the long wait to find out the final results, Nicholas would also like a review into how the Electoral Commission processes special votes.

“It was a huge tension and I think actually it was too much of a wait.

“Three weeks is a really long time not just as a candidate, who has the most marginal seat in the country, but also for the public as well. And I hope to see some sort of change to that.”

But despite her frustrations she’s not quitting on politics.

“There’s been lots of ups and downs and it’s something where I will take the next opportunity if it comes up. But I will hang around in politics as I’ve said and I would love to give it another go.”

With National Samoan list candidate Anges Loheni also missing out on entering the new government, Nicholas says Dr Shane Reti will be a great advocate for Pacific communities as the newly announced Minister For Pacific Peoples.

“I think Dr Shane will be a phenomenal choice - ideally we would have loved to have a Pacific person, but Dr Shane is such an incredible man and I think he will do well for Pacific People."

And she is also optimistic the new three-party coalition is going to be really good for New Zealand.

“For me, it’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out in the future and I’m actually quite excited. I don’t think any of what we do will be a surprise and I’m optimistic and really hopeful to see the changes.”